Exchange 2007 corrupt user rules

[DrJohnZoidberg]

I have a weird situation with one of our users, mail just stopped arriving in her inbox at about 10.30, I restarted everything, checked mail tracking and it shows that mail is being delivered to her address but it's not showing up.

I later try to disable all the rules she had set up through Outlook and everything starts working again. So problem sorted but now she has a bunch of missing mail.

My question is, does anyone know what happens to mail on Exchange before it gets rules processed and is there a way to retrieve them?

TIA

 

[oldBastard]

Any spam software on the server?

Junkmail folder?

Have done a trace of the mail if those particular mail has been delivered?

Was this previous mails or was during the problem?

Is there any other folders that the user created? Could that it might have been moved?

Have you tried opening her mailbox in OWA and check if you can see the mails there?

Also is there any server rules that the user might have created in OWA? Unlike Outlook where the mails only get processed if Outlook is running, any rules created in OWA is server side rules, so to answer your questions it depends, but if no server rules are created then it should go straight to Inbox, then get's processed by Outlook rules when opened.

Server side rules run's once the mail is delivered to users mailbox. That's how I run my rules, but I don't think the average user knows about it unless they go and tinker in the options section of OWA.

What backups are you running?

 

[hungrybeaver]

Have you tried opening her mailbox in OWA and check if you can see the mails there?

Check this immediately to see whether its a server problem or related to the users PC.

 

[DrJohnZoidberg]

Any spam software on the server?

Junkmail folder?

Have done a trace of the mail if those particular mail has been delivered?

Was this previous mails or was during the problem?

Is there any other folders that the user created? Could that it might have been moved?

Have you tried opening her mailbox in OWA and check if you can see the mails there?

Also is there any server rules that the user might have created in OWA? Unlike Outlook where the mails only get processed if Outlook is running, any rules created in OWA is server side rules, so to answer your questions it depends, but if no server rules are created then it should go straight to Inbox, then get's processed by Outlook rules when opened.

Server side rules run's once the mail is delivered to users mailbox. That's how I run my rules, but I don't think the average user knows about it unless they go and tinker in the options section of OWA.

What backups are you running?

The mails were not showing in OWA either, I was very confused as it was only that one mailbox. Then when I disabled all the rules new emails started coming in immediately.

The rules are done in Outlook 2013, which I think adds them on the server side.

Backups are handled by a Proxmox server, which creates live backups of the entire VM. I am thinking that may have something to do with it as the backup was busy at the time when the issue happened, maybe some files got locked or something. I'll check at the next backup.

Check this immediately to see whether its a server problem or related to the users PC.

I think it's on the server side as mails were not showing in OWA either.

 

[grim]

The mails were not showing in OWA either, I was very confused as it was only that one mailbox. Then when I disabled all the rules new emails started coming in immediately.

The rules are done in Outlook 2013, which I think adds them on the server side.

Backups are handled by a Proxmox server, which creates live backups of the entire VM. I am thinking that may have something to do with it as the backup was busy at the time when the issue happened, maybe some files got locked or something. I'll check at the next backup.



I think it's on the server side as mails were not showing in OWA either.

Not familiar with Promox but as long as it uses the provided VSS Writer for Exchange no files will be locked during the backup process.

 

[Hendrix]

Try "recover deleted items" in outlook, I know it's a long shot but I've found stuff there that was "missing" before.
All you've mentioned points to an outlook problem, not an exchange one