We have some Newsgroups in our Exchange 2000 (SP3 on Win2K SP3). From time
to time when somebody post a message it does not show up.
There are no error messages. We use Outlook Express (IE6 SP1) as our news
reader.
After such a message is posted, there is an indication that there are unread
messages in OE, but when you retreive the messages, there are no new
messages. These messages can not be found using Outlook 2002 in the Public
Folder tree either.

Most of the time, messages can be posted successfully.

Here is a log from Outlook Express:

NNTP: 17:25:36 [db] Connecting to 'news.domain.com' on port 119.
NNTP: 17:25:36 [rx] 200 NNTP Service 5.00.0984 Version: 5.0.2195.5329
Posting Allowed
NNTP: 17:25:36 [tx] MODE READER
NNTP: 17:25:36 [rx] 200 NNTP Service 5.00.0984 Version: 5.0.2195.5329
Posting Allowed
NNTP: 17:25:36 [tx] AUTHINFO USER someuser
NNTP: 17:25:36 [rx] 381 Waiting for password
NNTP: 17:25:36 [tx] AUTHINFO PASS ********
NNTP: 17:25:36 [rx] 281 Authentication ok
NNTP: 17:25:36 [tx] POST
NNTP: 17:25:36 [rx] 340 Continue posting - terminate with period
NNTP: 17:25:36 [tx]
..
NNTP: 17:25:36 [rx] 240 Article Posted OK
NNTP: 17:25:36 [db] Connection to 'news.domain.com' closed.
NNTP: 17:25:38 [tx] GROUP vinga.customer.six.equitytrader
NNTP: 17:25:38 [rx] 211 3 1 3 vinga.customer.six.equitytrader
NNTP: 17:25:39 [tx] GROUP vinga.customer.six.chart
NNTP: 17:25:39 [rx] 211 136 8 157 vinga.customer.six.chart
NNTP: 17:25:39 [tx] XOVER 157-157
NNTP: 17:25:39 [rx] 224 Overview information follows
NNTP: 17:28:26 [db] Connection to 'news.domain.com' closed.

On the server side things looks fine as well.

123.456.123.456, someuser, 12/5/2002, 17:24:26, NNTPSVC1, TIX,
111.222.333.444, 109, 0, 0, 0, 0, -, -, -,
123.456.123.456, someuser, 12/5/2002, 17:24:26, NNTPSVC1, TIX,
111.222.333.444, 156, 0, 0, 0, 0, -, -, -,
123.456.123.456, someuser, 12/5/2002, 17:24:26, NNTPSVC1, TIX,
111.222.333.444, 109, 0, 0, 0, 0, -, -, -,
123.456.123.456, someuser, 12/5/2002, 17:24:26, NNTPSVC1, TIX,
111.222.333.444, 125, 0, 0, 0, 0, -, -, -,
123.456.123.456, someuser, 12/5/2002, 17:24:29, NNTPSVC1, TIX,
111.222.333.444, 4828, 0, 0, 0, 0, -, -, -,
123.456.123.456, someuser, 12/5/2002, 17:24:32, NNTPSVC1, TIX,
111.222.333.444, 203, 0, 0, 0, 0, -, -, -,
123.456.123.456, someuser, 12/5/2002, 17:24:35, NNTPSVC1, TIX,
111.222.333.444, 203, 0, 0, 0, 0, -, -, -,
123.456.123.456, someuser, 12/5/2002, 17:24:35, NNTPSVC1, TIX,
111.222.333.444, 109, 0, 0, 0, 0, -, -, -,
123.456.123.456, someuser, 12/5/2002, 17:24:35, NNTPSVC1, TIX,
111.222.333.444, 109, 0, 0, 0, 0, -, -, -,
123.456.123.456, someuser, 12/5/2002, 17:24:35, NNTPSVC1, TIX,
111.222.333.444, 109, 0, 0, 0, 0, -, -, -,
123.456.123.456, someuser, 12/5/2002, 17:24:35, NNTPSVC1, TIX,
111.222.333.444, 109, 0, 0, 0, 0, -, -, -,
123.456.123.456, someuser, 12/5/2002, 17:24:35, NNTPSVC1, TIX,
111.222.333.444, 109, 0, 0, 0, 0, -, -, -,
123.456.123.456, someuser, 12/5/2002, 17:25:32, NNTPSVC1, TIX,
111.222.333.444, 312, 6, 70, 240, 600, post, vinga.customer.six.chart, -,
123.456.123.456, someuser, 12/5/2002, 17:25:32, NNTPSVC1, TIX,
111.222.333.444, 437, 0, 0, 0, 0, -, -, -,

Everyting behaves just like the message was posted and then directly
deleted.
We have not defined any expiration policies. The users does not have
permission to delete messages.

Any ideas what the problem can be?

I got the following response by BRUCE QIAN [MSFT] in another newsgroup:

>Thomas: it is best if you can post this question to the following group:
Exchange2000.admin

OK

>I believe we can use the following troubleshooting methods:
>Method #1
>---------
>Create a new NNTP Virtual Server and try to post the message to the new
Virtual Server.
>What is the result?

No change. About 1 in 10 messages does not show up.

>Method #2
>----------
>We can use TELNET command to see if we can see those "invisible" posts:

Missing messages can not be displayed by using Telnet. We hava also tried
some other NNTP clients in addition to OE, but the problem remains.

/Thomas

--
Thomas Olsson, Vinga System AB, Sweden
http://www.vinga.se

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Hello Thomas,

Thanks for the post. I was wondering how your newsfeed is setup and what
type of Newsgroups are being posted to? Are these private newsgroups that
reside in public folders on your server, or are they public newsgroups that
are accessed via a newsfeed? Also, it appears that this is intermittent.
Is there any pattern that you can discern such as a particular set of
users, or messages sent to a certain newsgroup, etc. If these are public
newsgroups, do the messages show up when you use a different news server?

I hope this helps!

I look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,

Alexander Louie
Microsoft Online Support

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

Get Secure! - www.microsoft.com/security

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The newsgroups are private newsgroups not connected to any external feed.
They are stored in the public folder structure.
Users connect using NNTP (Outlook Express) and other news readers. The users
must log in.

The problem is intermittent. About 10% of the posts fail. We have not yet
seen any pattern when it fails and when it doesn't. It seems like some users
have more problems than others, but the reason could be that they simply
post more messages.

/Thomas

--
Thomas Olsson, Vinga System AB, Sweden
http://www.vinga.se

"Alexander Louie (MS)" <alouieOnline@microsoft.com> wrote in message
newsLc53WWpCHA.2504@cpmsftngxa09...
> Hello Thomas,
>
> Thanks for the post. I was wondering how your newsfeed is setup and what
> type of Newsgroups are being posted to? Are these private newsgroups that
> reside in public folders on your server, or are they public newsgroups
that
> are accessed via a newsfeed? Also, it appears that this is intermittent.
> Is there any pattern that you can discern such as a particular set of
> users, or messages sent to a certain newsgroup, etc. If these are public
> newsgroups, do the messages show up when you use a different news server?
>
> I hope this helps!
>
> I look forward to hearing from you.
>
> Sincerely,
>
> Alexander Louie
> Microsoft Online Support
>
> This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no
rights.
>
> Get Secure! - www.microsoft.com/security
>

Report this post to a moderator

Hi Thomas,

Thanks for the reply. Do the items that end up not showing up have
attachments? There is an issue where items posted via OWA with attachments
can be deleted after 24 hours. If some users are posting via OWA this is a
possible issue, if not then disregard.

Also, are any messages showing up in the event logs? If you could, please
send me a copy of your event log in .evt format from the Exchange server
after this problem has been replicated a few times. It would be helpful,
also, to document the time of the failed posting in order to know where in
the event log to look.

Also, try usig a 3rd party news reader (just as a test) to post and read
messages. I'd like to deteremine if the problem is strictly on the server,
or if the newsreader may have something to do with the problem as well.

I hope this helps!

Please let me know if this solves your problem or if you would like further
assistance.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,

Alexander Louie
Microsoft Online Support

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

Get Secure! - www.microsoft.com/security

Report this post to a moderator

Thank you for your reply.

We are currently using _only_ OE as a News reader.

There are _no_ error messages in the event log and no new messages at all
during the day other than
periodic "Pickup Directory Status Report. In the last 60 minutes, the pickup
directory for virtual server 1 has successfully received 0 articles." This
perfectly normal since we use Public Folders to store the news articles and
do not receive data from other news servers.

We have treid several 3rd party news readers. Posting still behaves the same
way and we can still not see any of the missing messages.

/Thomas

--
Thomas Olsson, Vinga System AB, Sweden
http://www.vinga.se
(Reply adress is invalid to avoid spam)

"Alexander Louie (MS)" <alouieOnline@microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:K#bZ34jpCHA.2580@cpmsftngxa09...
> Hi Thomas,
>
> Thanks for the reply. Do the items that end up not showing up have
> attachments? There is an issue where items posted via OWA with
attachments
> can be deleted after 24 hours. If some users are posting via OWA this is
a
> possible issue, if not then disregard.
>
> Also, are any messages showing up in the event logs? If you could, please
> send me a copy of your event log in .evt format from the Exchange server
> after this problem has been replicated a few times. It would be helpful,
> also, to document the time of the failed posting in order to know where in
> the event log to look.
>
> Also, try usig a 3rd party news reader (just as a test) to post and read
> messages. I'd like to deteremine if the problem is strictly on the
server,
> or if the newsreader may have something to do with the problem as well.
>
> I hope this helps!
>
> Please let me know if this solves your problem or if you would like
further
> assistance.
>
> I look forward to hearing from you.
>
> Sincerely,
>
> Alexander Louie
> Microsoft Online Support
>
> This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no
rights.
>
> Get Secure! - www.microsoft.com/security
>

Report this post to a moderator

Hi Thomas,

Thanks for supplying the extra information. I'll need to do some additional
research on this and will get back to you as soon as possible.

Sincerely,

Alexander Louie
Microsoft Online Support

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

Get Secure! - www.microsoft.com/security

Report this post to a moderator

Here some more observations:

Just before lunch today we got a report from one of our users that they
could not post messages to the news group. I then checked with some other
users and they had the same problem. The all tried to restart OE. One of
them also tried to use the XNews client instead, but had the same problem.
Still no error messages on the server. The server log shows that messages
have been posted.
I then went to lunch. When I got back, everything worked fine again. We have
not touched the server or any other configurations.

/Thomas

--
Thomas Olsson, Vinga System AB, Sweden
http://www.vinga.se

"Alexander Louie (MS)" <alouieOnline@microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:QDi3UpvpCHA.1148@cpmsftngxa09...
> Hi Thomas,
>
> Thanks for supplying the extra information. I'll need to do some
additional
> research on this and will get back to you as soon as possible.
>
> Sincerely,
>
> Alexander Louie
> Microsoft Online Support
>
> This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no
rights.
>
> Get Secure! - www.microsoft.com/security
>

Report this post to a moderator

Thanks for the additional information, Thomas.

So it appears that all users are affected at the same time, but then the
problem goes away for some reason. It is just difficult to troubleshoot
because we are working with such little information and the logs come up
empty.

I'll do some consulting with some of the other Exhange folks around here
tomorrow and see if anyone has had a similar experience.

Sincerely,

Alexander Louie
Microsoft Online Support

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

Get Secure! - www.microsoft.com/security

Report this post to a moderator