XCON: MTA Stops Responding; Event ID 2110

The message transfer agent (MTA) may stop responding; the following event appears in the Event Viewer application log: When this error occurs, the MTA stops responding because a bad message is being processed on the affected server. If you run MTACHECK, it reports no errors. Each time the MTA is restarted, the same error occurs with a different object (06######) referenced each time.

To troubleshoot this error, attempt to isolate the problem to a bad local DAT file in the Mtadata directory:

1. Run MTACHECK.
2. If MTACHECK does not correct the problem, try finding the referenced DAT file (06######.DAT) in Mtadata. If it is there, move it to another directory or rename it. Restart the MTA to confirm whether the event ID 2110 recurs.
3. If this error still occurs after you try to troubleshoot the local MTA, find out more information about the topology of the Microsoft Exchange environment.
   
   Find out whether there is any mail entering the Microsoft Exchange environment through the Internet Mail Connector (IMC), a foreign X.400 system, or a Microsoft Mail Connector. These servers will most likely be the source of the bad message. Troubleshoot those servers that have these connectors installed, and see whether there are actually problems originating on those servers:
   1. Check the Event Viewer Application Logs, and verify that the MTA is running fine on those servers.
   2. Look in the MTA queue (on other adjacent servers) for mail destined for the affected server (that is, the server that is not responding and is experiencing Event ID 2110) with an old time/date stamp. If there is anything suspicious there, try to delete the messages that appear to be old or corrupt.
   3. If the MTA appears to be running with no problems on those servers, consider shutting down the MTAs (one at a time) and running MTACHECK on each of the computers.

Microsoft has confirmed this to be a problem in Microsoft Exchange Server version 4.0. This problem has been corrected in the latest U.S. Service Pack for Microsoft Exchange Server version 4.0. For information on obtaining the Service Pack, query on the following word in the Microsoft Knowledge Base (without the spaces): Microsoft has confirmed this to be a problem in Microsoft Exchange Server version 5.0. This problem has been corrected in the latest U.S. Service Pack for Microsoft Exchange Server version 5.0. For information on obtaining the Service Pack, query on the following word in the Microsoft Knowledge Base (without the spaces):

The portion of the event description in parentheses (DB Server XFER- IN 15 42) indicates which part of the MTA code was executing when the bad message was encountered.

In the case where "(DB Server XFER-IN 15 42)" is shown, there is an increased possibility that the bad message can be found on an adjacent server that is trying to deliver the message to this local server.

In the case where "(DB Server DISP FANOUT 22 42)"is shown, the bad message can probably be found on the local server in \MTADATA.