I went to perform a Discovery Search on our Exchange 2010 server for the first time since installing the server. Naturally, there was a problem. When trying to create a search using the Exchange Control Panel (ECP) the response was an error and the search could not be saved. My first thought was to make sure the arbitration accounts were setup and had the correct permissions. So, in the Exchange Management Shell I ran the command get-user -arbitration which showed the system mailboxes were in an inconsistent state:
This fix for this problem is to delete the system accounts and recreate them. The following steps are what I did to recreate the system accounts.
- In Active Directory Users and Computers delete the following accounts:
- FederatedEmail.4c1f4d8b-8179-4148-93bf-00a95fa1e042
- SystemMailbox{e0dc1c29-89c3-4034-b678-e6c29d823ed9}
- SystemMailbox{1f05a927-f5af-4646-bf20-4a3a41282c07}
NOTE: The last account may be different but, should start with “1f05a927”
- Open a Command prompt change directory to the setup files for Exchange. On my server this was located in:
C:\Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange Server\V14\Bin - Run the command: setup.com /preparead. This will recreate the system accounts.
- In the Exchange Management Shell run the following commands:
- Enable-Mailbox –Arbitration –Identity “FederatedEmail.4c1f4d8b-8179-4148-93bf-00a95fa1e042”
- Enable-Mailbox –Arbitration –Identity “SystemMailbox{e0dc1c29-89c3-4034-b678-e6c29d823ed9}”
- Enable-Mailbox –Arbitration –Identity “SystemMailbox{1f05a927-f91e-4cc2-b79a-00f3c790c250}”
Note: last account name will be different. Copy-and-paste name from AD Users and Computers.
- Still in the EMS run the following commands to set the display name and quota on the Federated mailbox:
- Set-Mailbox –Arbitration –Identity “SystemMailbox{e0dc1c29-89c3-4034-b678-e6c29d823ed9}” –DisplayName “Microsoft Exchange”
- Set-Mailbox –Arbitration –Identity “FederatedEmail.4c1f4d8b-8179-4148-93bf-00a95fa1e042” –ProhibitSendQuota 1MB
After rebuilding the accounts the commands get-user -arbitration and get-mailbox -arbitration should report no errors:
The complete error I was encountering was:
[PS] C:\Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange Server\V14\Scripts>get-user -arbitration
Name RecipientType
—- ————-
SystemMailbox{1f05a927-f5af-4646-bf20-4a3a4128… UserMailbox
WARNING: The object AP.local/Users/SystemMailbox{1f05a927-f5af-4646-bf20-4a3a41282c07} has been
corrupted, and it’s in an inconsistent state. The following validation errors happened:
WARNING: Database is mandatory on UserMailbox.
WARNING: Database is mandatory on UserMailbox.
SystemMailbox{e0dc1c29-89c3-4034-b678-e6c29d82… UserMailbox
WARNING: The object AP.local/Users/SystemMailbox{e0dc1c29-89c3-4034-b678-e6c29d823ed9} has been
corrupted, and it’s in an inconsistent state. The following validation errors happened:
WARNING: Database is mandatory on UserMailbox.
WARNING: Database is mandatory on UserMailbox.
FederatedEmail.4c1f4d8b-8179-4148-93bf-00a95fa… UserMailbox
WARNING: The object AP.local/Users/FederatedEmail.4c1f4d8b-8179-4148-93bf-00a95fa1e042 has been
corrupted, and it’s in an inconsistent state. The following validation errors happened:
WARNING: Database is mandatory on UserMailbox.
WARNING: Database is mandatory on UserMailbox.
Additional Resources:
http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/5317.recreate-and-enable-missing-arbitration-user-accounts-and-mailboxes-in-exchange-server-2010.aspx