Error c1038a21 occurs when you open the properties of a public folder

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This article was previously published under Q278441

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SYMPTOMS

In Exchange System Manager, when you attempt to open the properties of an Exchange Server public folder, you may receive the following error message:

The mail proxy for this folder can not be found. This may be due to replication delays. The mail enabled pages will not be shown. ID no: C1038a21

One or both of the following messages may also be logged in the Application event log every 15 minutes:

Event ID: 9543
Source: MSExchangeIS
Category: General
Description:
Unable to create Public Folder proxy object for folder folder_name in the Active Directory.

Event ID: 9188
Event Source: MSExchangeSA
Event Category: General
Description:
Microsoft Exchange System Attendant failed to read the membership of group 'cn=Exchange Domain Servers,cn=Users,dc=dcname,dc=dcname,dc=dcname,dc=com'. Error code '8007203b'. Please check whether the local computer is a member of the group. If it is not, stop all the Microsoft Exchange services, add the local computer into the group manually and restart all the services.

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CAUSE

This symptom may be caused by one of the following:

The Exchange Server computer does not have permissions to create objects in the Microsoft Exchange System Objects container.
The System Attendant service loses its connection to a domain controller, and the System Attendant service's attempt to bind to a new domain controller fails.
The System Attendant terminates unexpectedly and is then restarted, but the Information Store is not restarted.

The overall result is that the public folder is not stamped with a proxy address (such as pubfolder@contoso.com), and when you try to obtain the properties of the public folder in Exchange System Manager, you receive an error message.

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RESOLUTION

IMPORTANT Follow the steps in the "Workaround" section to try to work around this problem before you apply the latest service pack for Windows 2000.

To resolve this problem, obtain the latest service pack for Windows 2000. For additional information, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

260910 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/260910/EN-US/ ) How to Obtain the Latest Windows 2000 Service Pack

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WORKAROUND

To work around this problem, perform one or more of the following steps in the specified order, as necessary:

Stop and restart each of the Exchange 2000 services.
Restart the server.
Run Exchange 2000 Setup again with the /DomainPrep switch.

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STATUS

Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem in the Microsoft products that are listed at the beginning of this article. This problem was first corrected in Windows 2000 Service Pack 2.

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MORE INFORMATION

This problem may occur if the Windows 2000 LDAP provider does not correctly handle a reconnection attempt after any type of server failure. If a server goes down for any reason, typically, the Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) provider reconnects, and everything is fine as long as the re-bind succeeds. If a re-bind does not work for any reason, all of the future operations on that connection do not work.

For additional information about a fix for this LDAP provider problem, click the article number below to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

289221 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/289221/EN-US/ ) LDAP_LOCAL_ERROR Occurs During Server Restart and LDAP Operations Do Not Work

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