XCON: Under Certain Conditions MTA Erroneously Deletes Data Files

Under certain circumstances, the Exchange Server message transfer agent (MTA) may delete files that are greater than Db007fff.dat files.

This occurs when the total count of the number of .dat files in the Mtadata folder is greater than 32,767, or when .dat files that are greater than Db007fff.dat reference the X.400 application programming interface (XAPI) queues (Internet Mail Service, Microsoft Exchange Connector for Lotus cc:Mail [CCMC], MS Mail, or Exchange Development Kit [EDK] Connector) or the Work queue (Site Connector).

This issue only occurs if the MTA is not shut down properly, or if the Mtacheck utility is run manually against a database that was not shut down properly. If the MTA is not shut down properly, when the MTA starts, it runs the database recovery code and erroneously deletes files greater than Db007fff.dat files.

If the Mtacheck utility is run against a database that was not shut down properly, Mtacheck deletes files that are greater than Db007fff.dat file, and when the MTA starts, it logs the following events in the Event Viewer application event log:

• Event ID: 2171
  Event Type: Warning
  Event Source: MSExchangeMTA
  Event Category: Internal Processing
  
  Description:
  An MTA database server error was encountered while reading an attribute. Called from MTA. Procedure: 423. Database error code: ODXOINIU - Object does not exist. Object at fault: [DB######.DAT]. Attribute identifier: 86. Value number: 1. Referenced object: 00000000 (00000000 => N/A). Referenced object error 0. [DB Server DISP:ROUTER 8 26] (14)
• Event ID: 2175
  Event Type: Warning
  Event Source: MSExchangeMTA
  Event Category: Internal Processing
  
  Description:
  An MTA database server error was encountered while an attribute length. Called from MTA. Procedure: 429. Database error code: ODXOINIU - Object does not exist. Object at fault: [DB######.DAT]. Attribute identifier: 11. Value number: 1. Referenced object: 00000000 (00000000 => N/A). Referenced object error 0. [DB Server DISP:ROUTER 8 72] (14)
• Event ID: 2188
  Event Type: Warning
  Event Source: MSExchangeMTA
  Event Category: Internal Processing
  
  Description:
  An MTA database server error was encountered while deleting an object. Called from MTA. Procedure 118. Database error code: ODXOINIU - Object does not exist. Object at fault:[DB######.DAT]. [DB Server DISP:ROUTER 8 9]1 118 ODXOINIU - Object does not exist 06008C86 DB Server DISP:ROUTER 8] (14)

Note that the object at fault in the preceding events does not exist. the object refers to database file that is greater than Db007fff.dat file.

This issue does not occur with X.400 connectors.

To resolve this problem, obtain the latest service pack for Exchange Server 5.5. For additional information, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem in Microsoft Exchange Server version 5.5. This problem was first corrected in Exchange Server 5.5 Service Pack 4.