Re: Inbound/Outbound email stopped working.

On 25/10/10 23:06, Nick Giovas wrote:
> On Oct 25, 3:02 pm, Nick Giovas<n...@giovas.net> wrote:
>> I am currently running SBS 2008 with 5 users. Last Friday the power
>> went out bringing down the SBS server. The system automatically
>> restarted after the power was restored. Everything seemed to come up
>> fine, but I discovered later in the day that there is no inbound or
>> outbound email. I have tried multiple restarts of the server, router
>> and modem with no luck. I'm hoping someone can point me in the right
>> direction on what to look for.
>>
>> Here are some further details:
>>
>> 1. The system gracefully shut down. I have a UPS that is capable of
>> keeping the server running for approximately 45 minutes and then
>> shutting it down. During that time, emails go to a backup server
>> located at a hosting provider who hosts some web sites for me.
>>
>> 2. All other services appear to be working fine. When the system
>> came back up all users had internet access, OWA access from an
>> external location and internal email seems to be working. The system
>> only appears to be having issues with sending and receiving external
>> email.
>>
>> 3. There were a hand full of system updates that were installed, but
>> requried a restart. I was waiting until Friday night to complete the
>> restart. I am assuming that they were installed successfully upon
>> shutdown/restart. I don't know if there would have been anything in
>> these patches that may have caused issues.
>>
>> 4. I have tested the system by running an SMTP test on a couple of
>> sites and they all time out due to inactivity. As previously
>> mentioned, other remote services on the server are reachable.
>>
>> Any help would be greatly appreciated.
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Nick
>
> Running the Internet Connection Wizard seems to have resolved the
> issue. Is there anything that can be done to prevent this in the
> future? I'm concerned that if there is an extended power outage again
> in the future that the system may not recover if I am not around.
>

Not really. Without knowing the reason for something happening, there's
no way to prevent it happening again. What you describe is not normal
behaviour, but abnormal behaviour does just happen now and then.

I once had an SBS fail to connect to its network after an update/reboot.
First try was another reboot. No good. Spend an hour Googling, trying
ping, checking for stopped services, studying ipconfig output etc.
Reboot again, with a power cycle this time to reset the network card
hardware, or indeed any other troublesome hardware. Still no good, spend
another hour messing about. In desperation, reboot a third time, up
comes networking as if nothing had happened. In all the reboots that
server has had during its life, before and since, that has happened only
that one time. But since I have no idea what was wrong, it could happen
again tomorrow.

My only positive advice is never to run an update without being prepared
to reboot immediately. Some updates don't just put new binaries in
place, they actually turn processes off where a file is referenced
regularly, and cannot be replaced by a different one with impunity. I
recall an update which shut down Exchange, and I had planned not to
reboot until later that day. In the event, I had no option but to order
everyone off and do it immediately, to get email running again. I don't
know whether delaying the reboot had anything to do with your problem,
my preference is just to minimise the number of opportunities for bad
things to happen.

--
Joe