XADM: Continuous Attempts to Publish Free/Busy Information

• Microsoft Exchange Server, version 4.0

SYMPTOMS

In Microsoft Exchange, a countdown is set whenever the server schedule receives an unknown or Free/Busy notification. When the countdown reaches zero, the Free/Busy information is published.

If the publish fails, the countdown is reset to the same wait. However, if the Public Folder server is gone, the time-out to determine this exceeds the countdown and the idle engine calls back for Microsoft Exchange to retry nearly immediately.

WORKAROUND

Use a doubling retry time-out, maximum of 30 minutes. After each failure, the time to the next attempt doubles until the wait peaks at once every 30 minutes. Once the Free/Busy information is published, the time-out restores to 30 seconds.

STATUS

Microsoft has confirmed this to be a problem in Microsoft Exchange Server version 4.0. This problem was corrected in the latest Microsoft Exchange Server U.S. Service Pack. For information on obtaining the Service Pack, query on the following word in the Microsoft Knowledge Base (without the spaces):

   S E R V P A C K

MORE INFORMATION

Free/Busy publish retry rate after failure tended to be too high; therefore, almost all of the Microsoft Exchange Server time was spent in Free/Busy publish attempts and not giving any time to the user.