exchange powershell issue

Jerry Su 201

hello , I have a tricky issue with exchange management shell.

I have MBX1 ,MBX2, MBX3, MBX4 TOTAL 4 exchange 2016 servers.

MBX1 and MBX2 have a dag
MBX3 has all the shared mailbox so it doesn't with dag.
MBX4 has no mailbox on it, it only for the connect with exchange online (for hybrid deployment)

my laptop installed exchange management tools, and working fine (I often use my laptop to manage exchange with exchange management powershell)

today I discover I get no result when I runnging below command on my laptop.
But I get the expect result if I run the command on MBX 1 OR 2 OR 3 OR 4 (no matter which server)

Get-MailboxDatabase | Get-MailboxStatistics | Where{$_.DisconnectReason -eq "Disabled"}

anyone knows why ? thanks

Answer accepted by question author

Andy David - MVP 159.7K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator

2021-01-05T12:48:18.61+00:00
This is a known issue with a few of the remote powershell commands. its looking for the -identity which is designates a mailbox rather then the database.
( It typically throws an error that the identity cant be found if you run your command from remote powershell)

Running this same command on the Exchange Server directly as you have seen

https://github.com/MicrosoftDocs/OfficeDocs-Exchange/issues/764

The supposed way around this:

$dbs = Get-MailboxDatabase $dbs | foreach {Get-MailboxStatistics -Database $_.DistinguishedName} | where {$_.DisconnectReason -eq 'Disabled'} | Format-List DisplayName,MailboxGuid,LegacyDN,Database

However! Im not sure that really works either. I have run this in the past and it still doesnt produce results. I think its a bug in that command when run remotely to an Exchange Server.
If you find it still doesnt work, then run only on an Exch Server directly.
I dont think you are doing anything wrong necessarily, its just some bugginess. ( or by design haha)
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Rich Matheisen 48,026 Reputation points

2021-01-05T15:50:06.717+00:00

I wonder if the problem might be with the deserialized data you get from the remote session? When the cmdlet is run on the Exchange server the Get-MailboxDatabase returns a real "object", where properties have their own object types (integers, hashes, arrays, etc.) and there are also methods (executable stuff). The stuff returned from the remote session contains only properties (no methods) and all of the property values are just the string representation of the data.

If you look at the Get-MailboxStatistics cmdlet's "Input and output types" you don't see a "distinguishedName" type. You do see a DataBaseIDParameter, though. So maybe it's just a mismatch of names (or object types!) between what the "native" object contains and the "deserialized" object contains?

If I still had any Exchange servers to work on I'd have a look myself, but I don't. :-(

Andy David - MVP 159.7K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator

2021-01-05T15:57:33.16+00:00

Could be. I can poke around a bit or just give you RDP access. I trust you :P

Jerry Su 201 Reputation points

2021-01-06T01:30:38.843+00:00

thanks, the ps script is not work too. I think you are right, most likely is a bug

Andy David - MVP 159.7K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator

2021-01-06T01:34:19.127+00:00

Yea, I think its just one of those things :P

If you could accept an answer as accepted, we can close this up. thanks!
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5 additional answers

Eric Yin-MSFT 4,396 Reputation points

2021-01-06T07:58:05.877+00:00
I can't reproduce this issue because when I run "Get-MailboxDatabase | Get-MailboxStatistics | Where{$_.DisconnectReason -like "Disabled"}|ft displayname, disconnectreason", it failed with"The specified mailbox "Mailbox Database name" doesn't exist.”
And if I changed "-eq" to "-like" in the script posted by Andy, it work for me:

$dbs = Get-MailboxDatabase $dbs | foreach {Get-MailboxStatistics -Database $_.DistinguishedName} | where {$_.DisconnectReason -like 'Disabled'} | Format-List DisplayName,MailboxGuid,LegacyDN,Database

The interesting thing is that I found another command in offical doc Get-MailboxStatistics that work in my lab, test with it please:

Get-MailboxDatabase | Get-MailboxStatistics -Filter 'DisconnectDate -ne $null'

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Rich Matheisen 48,026 Reputation points

2021-01-06T15:56:11.447+00:00

When you find a disabled mailbox using the "-Like" operator, can you check to see if the value in the DisconnectReason property is a string and if it's the same length as the string literal "Disabled"?

Checking the DisconnectDate will find ALL disconnected mailboxes, but it doesn't distinguish between "Disabled" and "SoftDeleted", for example.

Eric Yin-MSFT 4,396 Reputation points

2021-01-07T09:24:01.82+00:00

Thank you for your post.
I'm not expert in powershell, how can I check the string and length?
The commands you posted seems not work:

At line:1 char:107 + ... abled".Length ){ + ~ Unexpected token '{' in expression or statement. At line:1 char:107 + ... abled".Length ){ + ~ Missing closing ')' after expression in 'If' statement. At line:1 char:107 + ... abled".Length ){ + ~ Missing closing '}' in statement block. + CategoryInfo : ParserError: (:) [], ParentContainsErrorRecordException + FullyQualifiedErrorId : UnexpectedToken

Rich Matheisen 48,026 Reputation points

2021-01-07T15:36:09.117+00:00

Oops. Sorry . . . that was due to a missing parenthesis. Here's an example that works:

$x = [PSCustomObject]@{Name = "Good"; DisconnectReason = 'Disabled'}, [PSCustomObject]@{Name = "Bad"; DisconnectReason = 'Disabled '} $x | ForEach-Object{ If ( ($_.DisconnectReason -like "*Disabled*") -and ( ($_.DisconnectReason).Length -ne "Disabled".Length )){ Write-Host $_.Name ($_.DisconnectReason.Length) -Fore Red } else{ Write-Host $_.Name ($_.DisconnectReason.Length) -Fore Green } }
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