Exchange 2010 SP2 and special characters in database name

Event ID 4999 is logged on an Exchange Server 2010 Client Access server (CAS) describes the following Exchange 2010 SP2 bug:

Consider the following scenario:

• You have a server that is running Microsoft Exchange Server 2010.
• The name of a mailbox database on the server contains one or more of the following special characters:
  (
  )
  :
• You install Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 Service Pack 2 (SP2).
• The System Attendant homeMDB attribute for a user points to the mailbox database that has special characters in the name.
• The user tries to access the Exchange Server 2010 SP2 mailbox.

In this scenario, the MSExchangeServicesAppPool application pool crashes on the Exchange Server 2010 Client Access server (CAS). Therefore, Exchange Web Services (EWS) applications cannot connect to the servers that are running Exchange Server 2010.

I was able to reproduce this in my Exchange 2010 SP2 test environment. After creating a test DB with name 'DB1 (Test)' and access a mailbox with Outlook 2007 I got the following Application Log error:

Result: Outlook 2007/2010 Out of Office (OOF) are not working anymore. This is because OOF is using Exchange Web Services on Exchange CAS.

An Interim Update (IU) is available from Microsoft.

Update 16-2-2012: this issue has been solved with Exchange 2010 SP2 Update Rollup 1

Exchange 2010 and removing AD Sites

A customer removed AD Sites because of restructuring AD Sites to a central AD Site.

Exchange Application Log reported:
Unhandled Exception "User setting 'PreferredSite' is not available"
Source: MSExchange Autodiscover
Level: Error

Exchange 2010 has an Active Directory dependency and both Exchange Client Access Array en Client Access Server make explictit use of AD Sites.

Solution is to reconfigure Exchange for the new AD Site:
Set-ClientAccessArray Name-CAS-Array –Site Name-AD-Site
Set-ClientAccessServer Name-CAS-Server – AutoDiscoverSiteScope Name-AD-Site

Warning when creating GAL from Exchange 2010 SP2 Shell

When creating a GAL from Exchange 2010 SP2 Shell (New-GlobalAddressList) I got the following warning:

WARNING: One or more global address lists were missing from the Active Directory attribute.  This is likely caused by using legacy Exchange management tools to create global address lists

Cause: you get this warning if this is the first new GAL created from 2010 or there are 2007 created GALs. This is 'by design' and can be ignored.

Exchange 2010 Address List Updates & Address Book Policies

Understanding Address Book Policies explains how to use & create Address Book Policies (ABPs):

1.       Use Custom Attributes 1-15
2.       Create Address Lists, GALs and OABs
3.       Create ABPs
4.       Assign ABPs to mailboxes
5.       Outlook users will see their own GAL

However, Outlook users will see an empty GAL and Address List containers. Solution:

·         Update-AddressList <name>

·         Update-GlobalAddressList <name>
·         Update-OfflineAddressBook <name>

Update-AddressList/GlobalAddressList/OfflineAddressBook only need to be executed once. After updating the address lists new Exchange recipients are immediately visible with Outlook in Online Mode.