Re: Invalid Header Fields

Hello,

Thanks for the update.

Yes, first you may restart the SBS server to check how it works.

Moreover, I'd like to know whether these mails on the POP3 mailbox is
normal and can be accessed/downloaded. You may have a test to connect to
the POP3 mailbox with the Outlook client to check whether those problematic
mails can be accessed/downloaded properly. Please make sure you have select
the option "Leave a copy of message on the server" to remain those mail
when you connect the mailbox with Outlook client.

If those problematic mails cannot be accessed/downloaded neither in the
Outlook client, those mail may corrupted and you may have to manually clean
it on the POP3 server.

Hope it helps. Also If you have any questions or concerns, please do not
hesitate to let me know.




Best regards,
Miles Li

Microsoft Online Partner Support
Microsoft Global Technical Support Center

Get Secure! - www.microsoft.com/security
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Thanks again about the very fast answering!

I haven´t tried to boot the server yet.

I apologise, that I haven´t mention this before, but I have tried to
download those emails with Outlook Express (POP3-account) so that I will
leave copy to ISPs mail-server, and they arrived to Outlook Express just
fine, and copy stays on ISPs mail-server. One user even has account
settings in his mobile-phone, and those emails downloaded fine in the
mobile-phone (of course copy leaves to ISPs email-server).

So, I try to boot the server, and then I will send more information that
what happened.

Best Regards,
Jani

Hello,

Thanks for the update.

Yes, as you have downloaded those problematic mails you may try to clean
them from the POP3 mailbox. If those mails are left in the mail box, the
error event will be logged every time the POP3 connecter attempts to
download mails. You may manually clean those problematic mails and restart
the server to check whether issue will happen on other incoming mails.

Hope it helps. If you have any questions or concerns, please do not
hesitate to let me know.


Best regards,
Miles Li

Microsoft Online Partner Support
Microsoft Global Technical Support Center

Get Secure! - www.microsoft.com/security
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Hello,

I allready in history cleaned those "Invalid Header Fields"-mails
everybodys ISPs mailbox, so that no one has any problematic email there.
After few weeks, when some automatic sends to mail (those mails has
<mailer-daemon> in Return-path) there is again "Invalid Header
Fields"-mails in ISPs POP3-mail server. Those mails are not spam, those
mails are "Holiday announcements + away from office announcements +
sended to wrong email address". Those mails are everytime created by
some kind of automatic-system.

I don´t want to delete those emails, I just want that those emails are
downloaded by SBS 2008 POP3-Connector.

I hope that this message gives some more information about my problem.

Best Regards,
Jani

Hello,

Thanks for the update.

At this time, I suspect this issue is caused by certain corrupt POP3 mails
sent to that user. Generally, the POP3 connector mail flow are as follows:

1. Mail is retrieved and placed into the %systemroot%\Program
Files\Microsoft Small Business Server\Networking\POP3\Incoming Mail folder.
2. When all mail has been retrieved from the remote POP3 Server (or the
maximum number of messages has been downloaded for this POP3 session), the
Exchange component will pick up the mail that is in the Incoming Mail
folder. The headers of the messages will be modified to indicate that the
messages are being sent to a local Exchange mailbox user, and then the mail
will be placed into the %systemroot%\InetPub\mailroot\Pickup folder.
3. If the Exchange component is unable to send the message to the Pickup
folder, such as if the message is corrupt, then the e-mail message will be
placed in the %systemroot%\Program Files\Microsoft Small Business
Server\Networking\POP3\Failed Mail folder. (Therefore, you may also check
this folder for "missing" mails.)
4. All messages that are in the Pickup folder will be processed by the
local SMTP service and sent to the appropriate recipient.

For further investigation of the issue, I'd like to suggest you to check
whether those problematic mails are in the Failed Mail folder. If yes, you
may check how it works if you manually place those mails into the Exchange
Pickup folder.

How to troubleshoot the POP3 Connector in Windows Small Business Server 2003
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/885685/en-us

Hope it helps. If you have any questions or concerns, please do not
hesitate to let me know.



Best regards,
Miles Li

Microsoft Online Partner Support
Microsoft Global Technical Support Center

Get Secure! - www.microsoft.com/security
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Hello, and thanks for the more information about this case.

Note: those folder paths only works with SBS 2003, and SBS 2008 has
different folder paths.
I make some research job, and found more details about this case.
There is pop3service.log in c:\program files\windows small business
server\logs\pop3connector - folder.
In that log I found the reason why those emails are not downloaded by
pop3connector.

In the pop3service.log

[t 0] 02/05/09, 09:31:23: EVENT: One or more (2) e-mail messages in the
POP3 mailbox account '' on the POP3 server
'mail.domain.com' have invalid header fields. Because of this, the
messages cannot be delivered to the Exchange Server mailbox
'' in Windows Small Business Server. The messages
are still on the POP3 server. To resolve this issue, connect to the POP3
mailbox account, and then manually retrieve or delete the messages.


[t 0] 02/05/09, 09:31:29: Error: The "MAIL FROM" address
("MAILER-DAEMON", from header field "Return-Path") was rejected. Continuing.

So, the clear reason is now, that every message that some kind of
automate creates, and email have "MAILER-DAEMON" in "Return-Path" field
will be rejected by pop3connector.


So here is detailed discription about the header one of the email, that
is stil in ISPs POP3-mail server:

Return-Path: <MAILER-DAEMON>
Delivered-To:
Received: from mail11.domain.com (mail11.domain.com [xxx.xx.xx.xx])
by mx.domain.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id xxxxxxxxx
for <>; Mon, 29 Dec 2008 20:54:13 +0200 (EET)
Received: from localhost by mail11.domain.com;
29 Dec 2008 19:54:08 +0100
Date: 29 Dec 2008 19:54:08 +0100
To:
From: "Mail Delivery System" <MAILER->
Subject: Delivery Status Notification (Failure)
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: multipart/report; report-type=delivery-status;
boundary="anc2.4NpF/xF/i.1IWNGZ.FxHSw0R"
Message-Id: <>


So now I think that this problem is only pop3connector-problem, and not
Exchange or any other programs problem. Pop3connector doesn´t even start
to download those problematic emails, so it can´t deliver to badmail\550
- folder.

Is there some kind of parameter that I can use with pop3connector.exe -
program?

Note: there is also C:\Program Files\Windows Small Business
Server\Data\badmail\550 - folder, which has two emails, and those two
emails were received by December 2008.

Best Regards,
Jani

Hello Jani,

From my research, it is by design in the Exchange that the mail will be
rejected when it has a invalid "Return-Path" header. A "Return-Path" header
should have a valid address containing a locally interpreted string
followed by the at-sign character "@" followed by an Internet domain. To
correct the issue, you may check whether you can specify a proper
"Return-Path" in the software that sends these mails out. It should have an
"@" in it.

Hope it helps. If you have any questions or concerns, please do not
hesitate to let me know.



Best regards,
Miles Li

Microsoft Online Partner Support
Microsoft Global Technical Support Center

Get Secure! - www.microsoft.com/security
================================================== ===
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that others may learn and benefit from your issue.
================================================== ===
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Hello Miles,

Thank you for update infromations.

Software that sends these emails are some kind of automatic-systems.
Those systems seems to be still a lot around internet.

I know, that there should be in return-path-header some kind of reality
email-address, which have "@"-sign between it.

I think that it is impossible to make contact to every system, which
makes those automatic-emails, and ask them to change that system.

So after all, we only can wait to Microsoft make changes this behavior?
Can we somehow make this change-process to go faster?
Do you know, that there is any unofficial patch, that could change this?

Best regards,
Jani

I believe the issue is a bit more complicated than what's been presented so
far.

I have the same issue. However, in my case the supposedly invalid emails
are causing valid emails to stay on the POP3 server also. When I delete one
of the invalid emails, the other stuck emails get downloaded.

As you can imagine, this is a big problem, as my users are not getting
emails they should be getting.

I suspect either the POP3 connector is not working properly either because
of poor design or because there is some tweaking to the configuration that
needs to be done.

Microsoft - Let's get a bit more focus on resolution on this one, please.

Thanks,
Fred

I've seen this problem with POP3 servers without Exchange involved, so it's
not necessarily related to the POP3 connector. When a message header is
corrupted, the POP3 protocol fails on the server, and no messages can be
pulled. In the days before webmail, that meant asking the mail server admins
to remove the message.

"fganter" <> wrote in message
news:1A433B18-C57C-4E9F-9E81-...
>I believe the issue is a bit more complicated than what's been presented so
> far.
>
> I have the same issue. However, in my case the supposedly invalid emails
> are causing valid emails to stay on the POP3 server also. When I delete
> one
> of the invalid emails, the other stuck emails get downloaded.
>
> As you can imagine, this is a big problem, as my users are not getting
> emails they should be getting.
>
> I suspect either the POP3 connector is not working properly either because
> of poor design or because there is some tweaking to the configuration that
> needs to be done.
>
> Microsoft - Let's get a bit more focus on resolution on this one, please.