Duplicate Protocol Entries Appear in Exchange System Manager

On an Exchange 2000 server that is part of a cluster, when you view the Protocols container in Exchange System Manager, you see a duplicate for each item (IMAP, POP3, HTTP, and SMTP). The duplicate protocols are disabled and have either a red "X" or a yellow question mark (?) over them. When you try to delete the duplicate entries, they cannot be deleted. When you view the Cluster administrator, there is only one instance of each protocol. The server is functioning correctly.

This problem may occur when a clustered System Attendant resource is made dependent on a network name that already has an Exchange virtual server. Because the Exchange virtual server object already exists in the Microsoft Active Directory directory service, the Exchange Setup code attaches to the existing Exchange virtual server instead of creating a conflicting object. In the process, duplicate protocol objects are created under the Exchange virtual server Protocols container.

To resolve this problem, use ADSI Edit to remove the duplicate entries. ADSI Edit is available in Windows Support Tools.

For additional information about how to install Windows 2000 Support Tools, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
Warning If you use the ADSI Edit snap-in, the LDP utility, or any other LDAP version 3 client, and you incorrectly modify the attributes of Active Directory objects, you can cause serious problems. These problems may require you to reinstall Microsoft Windows 2000 Server, Microsoft Windows Server 2003, Microsoft Exchange 2000 Server, or both Windows and Exchange 2000 Server. Microsoft cannot guarantee that problems that occur if you incorrectly modify Active Directory object attributes can be solved. Modify these attributes at your own risk. To use ADSI Edit to remove the duplicate protocol entries, follow these steps:

1. Make a note of the name of each duplicate protocol in Exchange System Manager.
   
   You can either use the current name in Exchange System Manager or rename the unwanted objects in Exchange System Manager to something that is easy to identify.
   
   Note If you rename the object, you must wait for Active Directory replication to complete.
2. Click Start, point to Programs, point to Windows 2000 Support Tools, point to Tools, and then click ADSI Edit.
3. Locate the following container:
   CN=Configuration\CN=Services\CN=Microsoft Exchange\CN=First Organization\CN=Administrative Groups\CN=Servers\CN=Your_Exchange_Server_Name\CN=Protocols \CN=IMAP4.
   The following objects appear in the IMAP4 container:
   • CN=1
   • CN=2
4. To determine the instance of the protocol that you want to delete, find the display name for each instance. To do this, follow these steps:
   1. Right-click CN=1, and then click Properties.
   2. In the Select which properties to view list, click Optional.
   3. In the Select a property to view list, click adminDisplayName.
   4. Make a note of the name in the Value(s) box.
   5. Repeat steps 4a to 4d for the CN=2 object.
   6. Make a note of the object that has the adminDisplayName value that is the same as the name of the duplicate protocol that appears in Exchange System Manager that you want to delete.
5. Close the Properties dialog box.
6. Right-click the object that you have determined is the one that you want to delete, and then click Delete.
7. Repeat steps 4 to 5 for each protocol that has a duplicate instance that you want to delete.
8. Wait for Active Directory to replicate, and then update the view in Exchange System Manager.

Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem in the Microsoft products that are listed at the beginning of this article.