Group Won’t Accept Mail From ‘Outside’
KB ID 0001771 Problem Exchange has been this way for a long time here’s me explaining this very problem with older versions of Exchange. If you create a ‘Group’, be that a Distribution Group, or a ‘Microsoft 365′ Group, the default setting is to NOT ALLOW mail from anyone outside your organisation. If you attempt to send mail to that group you will see errors like these; Errors; 550 5.7.133...
Can you Use ‘Let’s Encrypt’ on Hybrid Exchange?
KB ID 0001770 Problem A few months ago I wrote an article about getting free exchange certificates with Lets ‘Encrypt’. And that still works peachy, I implemented it on my test Exchange 2019 server (in Hybrid mode) and all appeared well. Some time later, (remember this is my test network so it’s not in production.) I noticed that mail was not getting forwarded from O365 to the on premises Exchange server. I’ve...
Exchange Y2KK Bug
KB ID 0001769 Y2KK Problem Over the last couple of days the Exchange forums have been alight with the Y2KK bug, typically it affects Exchange 2016 and 2019 (though the chatter is, it actually effects any Exchange versions whose update version begins with 22… This is fine below, (it begins with 21..) Add-PSSnapin Microsoft.Forefront.Filtering.Management.Powershell Get-EngineUpdateInformation Y2KK Symptoms Emails No Longer Being...
Exchange ECP HTTP 500 Error
KB ID 0001756 Problem This infuriatingly happens to me a lot! Every time the fix is the same, (but is a little impractical). Essentially you attempt to log in to ECP (Exchange Admin Center), you a prompted for your credentials, then you just get a ‘500 Error”. The website cannot display the page HTTP 500 Most likely causes: •The website is under maintenance. •The website has a programming error. What you can try: ...
In Place Upgrade Windows 2016 to Windows 2019
KB ID 0001761 Problem Note: Also See In Place Upgrade of Window Server For the last twenty years or so I’ve said “In place upgrades are a bad idea”, my rationale has been that if something is broken we are simply migrating that problem, and we are relying on a lot of factors, (some of which may be unknown.) That we will just have to ‘trust that it will work’. Most modern servers are virtual so we can...
A Reboot From a Previous Installation is Pending
KB ID 0001755 Problem You may see the “A Reboot From a Previous Installation is Pending” error when either attempting to install Microsoft Exchange or apply a cumulative update, (which is basically a reinstall anyway!) You may also see this if you are only installing the management tools. At command line; A reboot from a previous installation is pending. Please restart the system and then rerun Setup. Or if you are running...
Exchange Stopped Working?
KB ID 0001749 Problem I see various posts in online forums, and the process is held up because a lot of techs can’t do basic troubleshooting on their Exchange deployments. So I thought I’d put together some basic ‘first steps’ for you to do when your ‘Exchange Stopped Working’ This way you can at least get an error code to search for or a better idea of what’s going on. Exchange Stopped...
Free Exchange Certificate
KB ID 0001739 Problem A couple of weeks ago I wrote an article about getting free certificates for IIS with ‘Let’s Encrypt’. Last week the renewal for my ‘test’ Exchange server’s certificate came though. So I thought “Why don’t I try and get a ‘Free Exchange Certificate’?” Free Exchange Certificate Before we start let’s take a moment to take a look at our existing...
Cannot Open Exchange Management Shell
KB ID 0001707 Problem When attempting to open the Exchange Management shell you see the following; Welcome to the Exchange Management Shell! Full list of cmdlets: Get-Command Only Exchange cmdlets: Get-ExCommand Cmdlets that match a specific string: Help ** Get general help: Help Get help for a cmdlet: Help or -? Exchange team blog: Get-ExBlog Show full output for a command: | Format-List Show quick reference guide: QuickRef VERBOSE:...
Can I ‘Shrink’ My Exchange Database?
KB ID 0001706 Problem Saw this asked in a forum today, and my response was; It never gets smaller, if you delete things out of it, it just creates more ‘whitespace’ within the database, unless you; a) Take it offline, and defragment it using eseutil. b) Move the mailboxes out of it, to another database and delete it. Which is true, but even Microsoft say you should not need to defragment a database! Before you do anything...