Topic Last Modified: 2010-02-18

The Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 Management Pack for System Center Operations Manager monitors the Windows Application log on computers running Exchange 2010 and generates this alert when the events specified in the following Details table are logged.

To learn more about this alert, in Operations Manager, do one or more of the following:

From the Operations Console, double-click this alert, and then click the General tab. Review the description of the alert that includes the variables specific to your environment.
From the Operations Console, double-click this alert, and then click the Alert Context tab. Review the logged events that meet the criteria of this Operations Manager alert.

Details

Product Name	Exchange
Product Version	14.0 (Exchange 2010)
Event ID	8004
Event Source	MSExchangeTransport
Alert Type	Error
Rule Path	Microsoft Exchange Server/Exchange 2010/Common Components/Hub Transport and Edge Transport/Transport
Rule Name	The specified connector experienced a non-SMTP gateway connection failure. An I/O exception occurred when writing to the drop directory.

Explanation

This Error event indicates that the specified Foreign connector experienced an I/O exception while performing a write operation to the specified Drop directory.

The following two items control the location of the Drop directory for each Foreign connector that is configured on a Hub Transport server:

The RootDropDirectoryPath parameter on the Set-TransportServer cmdlet This option is used for all Foreign connectors that exist on the Hub Transport server. By default, the value of the RootDropDirectoryPath parameter is blank. This indicates the value of the RootDropDirectoryPath parameter is the Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 installation folder. The default installation folder is C:\Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange Server\V14\.
The DropDirectory parameter on the Set-ForeignConnector cmdlet This value is set for each Foreign Connector that exists on the Hub Transport server. The value of the DropDirectory parameter must be a simple directory name. The value of the DropDirectory parameter cannot contain any absolute path information. The Drop directory that is specified by the DropDirectory parameter is not created automatically.

An I/O exception can be caused by any of the following conditions:

Problems with the physical hard disk drive structure This can include the hard disk drive itself or the hard disk drive controller.
Problems with the logical disk structure This can include file system errors or corruption.
Transient software errors This can include intense periods of read and write activity on the hard disk drive.

User Action

To resolve this error, do the following:

Verify that the drivers and firmware for the hard disk drives and the hard disk drive controller are up to date.
Run the command CHKDSK drive letter: /F /R. This command finds and repairs physical errors and file system errors on the affected hard disk drive.
Change the location of the Drop directory for the specified Foreign connector to another hard disk drive.

For more information, see Configure the Drop Directory.

For More Information

If you are not already doing so, consider running the Exchange tools created to help you analyze and troubleshoot your Exchange environment. These tools can help make sure that your configuration aligns with Microsoft best practices. They can also help you identify and resolve performance issues, improve mail flow, and better manage disaster recovery scenarios. To run these tools, go to the Toolbox node of the Exchange Management Console. To learn more about these tools, see Managing Tools in the Toolbox.