Topic Last Modified: 2010-02-05

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	3004
Event Source	MSExchangeTransport
Alert Type	Warning
Rule Path	Microsoft Exchange Server/Exchange 2010/Common Components/Hub Transport and Edge Transport/Transport
Rule Name	Spam quarantine message generation may fail because there was an error reading the quarantine mailbox configuration from the directory.

Explanation

This Error event indicates that content filtering could not read the SMTP address for the spam quarantine mailbox from the Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services (AD LDS) or Active Directory. The Microsoft Exchange Transport service sends all messages that are equal to or greater than the spam confidence level (SCL) quarantine threshold to a spam quarantine mailbox. You specify the spam quarantine mailbox by entering a Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) address for the QuarantineMailbox parameter of the Set-ContentFilterConfig cmdlet.

If you have deployed content filtering on the Edge Transport server, content filtering queries the local AD LDS instance for the SMTP address of the spam quarantine mailbox. If you have deployed content filtering on the Hub Transport server, content filtering queries Active Directory for the SMTP address of the spam quarantine mailbox.

This error is returned only when one or more of the following conditions are true:

The SMTP address for the QuarantineMailbox parameter is corrupted. If you used the Exchange Management Shell to enter the value of the parameter, the SMTP address was validated as well-formatted when the Set-ContentFilterConfig cmdlet ran. Therefore, if the SMTP address is now corrupted, it is likely some other tool or process was used to alter the data.
Content filtering was unable to contact the AD LDS instance or Active Directory.

User Action

To resolve this error, verify that the SMTP address for the spam quarantine mailbox is specified in the QuarantineMailbox parameter on the content filtering configuration object by running the Get-ContentFilterConfig cmdlet. If the SMTP address is corrupted, the Get-ContentFilterConfig cmdlet cannot run because the cmdlet tries to validate the value of the QuarantineMailbox parameter.

If the SMTP address is corrupted, reset the SMTP address by using the Set-ContentFilterConfig cmdlet.

If the SMTP address is a valid SMTP address, the error indicates that content filtering was unable to connect to AD LDS or Active Directory. Follow standard networking troubleshooting procedures to verify that content filtering can connect to AD LDS or Active Directory.

For more information, see Set-ContentFilterConfig and Understanding Spam Quarantine.

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.