The entire corporate world is connected with each other through emails. It can be client side or server side. So every organisation requires server to communicate with all the email clients and for that purpose Exchange server is used. The emails are sent and received from source to destination are synchronised by Exchange server. But sometimes our email is sent from source but not received at the destination end or vice versa. In this article, we will learn troubleshooting Exchange 2013 Mail Flow by its inbuilt utilities. These inbuilt tools can track the entire flow of the mails and show errors to remove or fix them.
Reasons for the Mail Flow Issues
- All the data sent or received by a server in a queue and if somehow there is any blockage in the queue then other emails might be not delivered.
- If there is any traffic in the path from client machine to server machine then also, it leads to mail flow problems.
- If there is corruption in Exchange server, then also mail flow problems arises.
- If there is any issue in any email client then also sending and receiving of the mail gets blocked and cause flow issues.
Methods for Troubleshooting Exchange 2013 Mail Flow
If any organisation is facing mail flow issues then it can lead to great loss to the company. Exchange Server provides two inbuilt utilities to resolve this issue:
Message Tracking
This tracking tool is like a search engine to search the server logs and allows user to view the status of the email if it is delivered or not and at what time the email is sent or receive. Let us discuss on how it diagnose the issue step by step:
- First of all open the Exchange Management Console and select the Toolbox Container.
- Then one window will appear and you have to select Message Tracking Option.
- Now Microsoft Exchange Troubleshooting Assistant(EXTRA) window will appear.
- For the first time users, select update option and after that click on Go to Welcome Screen.
- In Message Tracking option user can search his email messages on various parameters like sender’s name, date and time of the email sent, etc.
- After selecting the desired parameter, there will be Exchange Management Shell Command constructed by the console. User can track his emails from the command line.
- Then click on Next and view all your emails on the basis of your parameters. It will only show the status of the email but not the message because user is viewing at the administrator’s end.
This tool can track the delivery status of the email but could not correct any issue if there is any delivery failure.
Queue Viewer
To restore the mail flow after clearing the cache of the Exchange Server, we can use Queue Viewer tool to troubleshoot Exchange Mail Flow problem by simply following some easy steps:
- First open the Microsoft Exchange Console (EMC), then click on Toolbox container to select Queue Viewer Option.
- Many mail queues will get visible, now user can check those columns of Queue Viewer that are causing problems.
- To know the cause of error of mail flow, you can see at the last Check or Next retry to fix all the issues. Message Count is also used to diagnose whether any message is caught in the Queue.
- Queue Viewer does not show any status but it refreshes its status after 30 seconds but you can also click on Refresh or wait for 30 seconds to know the status of Queue.
- You can also double-click on Queue to look inside any mail stuck and errors causing to it.
- If you get any error then delete that mail and restart queue’s flow by rebooting the Exchange server.
Exchange Server Troubleshooting Assistant (EXTRA)
It is also inbuilt in Microsoft Exchange which helps in troubleshooting Exchange 2013 Mail Flow. To work with EXTRA, follow the below steps:
- Click on Start and then on Run & type EXTRA. Press Enter.
- Then a welcome screen appears. Click on Select a task and then on Mail Flow Troubleshooter.
- It will show the symptoms of the mail flow issues.
- After selecting the last submission option, it will ask the name of the computer in which MS Exchange server is installed and where the messages are not being processed.
- It will retrieve the information on services that are stopped and are not processed that might be causing some issues.
- Select the error messages and you will see the detailed description of the service stopped or issue arises in mail flow.
- Check the Transport server and Mailbox health.
- Now check the Error results.
- Now start the service again and get your issue resolved.
Alternative to Troubleshoot Exchange Server Mail Issue
These type of issues can happen when there is any corruption in the Exchange server. User cannot access to his mailboxes and then it fails the incoming and outgoing mail flow. So to recover all the mailboxes, you can go for third-party tools as Exchange Database Recovery Software.
Conclusion
This article is to deliver information on diagnosing and troubleshooting Exchange 2013 mail flow issue resolved by inbuilt utilities. These tools will definitely solve all the mail incoming and outgoing problems.
