Comments on: Exchange 2003 transaction log files filling up very quickly

By: how to open ost file

how to open ost file — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 02:40:51 +0000

For this business i usually use next utility-Recovery Toolbox for Outlook,also as how as i remember tool has free status,it restore all your contacts, emails, meetings and tasks are typically stored on server,permit to open *.ost files and convert them into *.pst files, that can be opened by any program, compatible with Microsoft Outlook email client,allows opening ost files and to store your personal data independently from Microsoft Exchange Server, it is very important, if you’d like to access your contacts and email archive from outside of your company,can extract the files in *.vcf, *.eml and *.txt formats.

By: Gary

Gary — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 10:40:22 +0000

I have just had the same problem my system has started generating 40gig of log files a day for 100 users we only have a 30gig edb file . i’m running ex server 2003 all clients are outlook 2007. I’m having trouble trying to identify the offending client.

Any suggestions would be helpfull

By: Matthew

Matthew — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 11:27:51 +0000

We’ve had this problem several times in the last couple of months. It seems to be caused by a corrupted OST and the quickest way to fix is to find the offending user (ExMon is good for this), shut down Outlook, delete their ost file and open Outlook again. This will rebuild it and should sort the problem. All the users were using Outlook 2007, and at least half of them reported a mail being stuck in their outbox when the problem occurred.

It doesn’t seem to fall into any kind of pattern either, we’ve had this happen on different days of the week and at different times.

More worryingly than just transaction logs filling up, we’ve also found that it can quickly fill up a store with blank space. We’re running Exchange 2003 Enterprise edition so fortunately we’re not being hit with store size limits, but disk space is a problem when this kicks off and only recreating stores and juggling mailboxes can reclaim that space.

I’m hoping MS manage to fix this one and get a patch for Outlook 2007 soon, else this could cause major problems if it keeps on happening.

By: Kiltak

Kiltak — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 17:33:20 +0000

Hmmm, in my situation, as soon as outlook was close, the problem stopped occuring.

Is it possible that someone has an event that only runs on sunday? Something like a recurring task… I heard that rules can sometimes cause this kind of problem too..

By: Joshua

Joshua — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 17:25:44 +0000

Say the user is not logged into their machine but the machine is still on. Would this still cause the logs to fill up? And our issue is that this, the issue, for us only happens on Sundays. Any reason why it would do that? Thank you.

By: Kiltak

Kiltak — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 17:10:49 +0000

The size of the logs were only growing when the client was up… if the computer was powered down, everything was going fine.. The only thing I had to do was to delete and reconfigure the outlook 2007 profile on the client that was causing the problem..

After, I had to do an offline defrag to shrink down the size of the store.

By: Joshua

Joshua — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 16:48:16 +0000

I have a few good questions to ask you. Did you issue happen a particular day of the week, or every day. The second question is did the rouge computer you found, was the Outlook client up and running when it was filling up the logs or was the user logged off? Please let me know. Thank you.

By: Kiltak

Kiltak — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 00:39:43 +0000

Hmmm, no idea.. I’m in vacation right now and don’t have access to the console.. but this should be available under all versions of the EX2k3 manager.. I run the latest SP with all the most recent patches..

By: Joshua

Joshua — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 21:24:54 +0000

No. The client version under logons. (System Manager.)
Examples include 12.0.6300.5000, 11.0.8200.0, ect.)

By: Kiltak

Kiltak — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 21:21:23 +0000

Yeah, outlook 2007…

By: Joshua

Joshua — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 21:09:57 +0000

Do you remember which client version your issue system had? I was wondering if this had something to do with it.

By: Kiltak

Kiltak — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 18:20:29 +0000

Ok got it, sorry, it’s under the Logon section, -

administrative groups - first administrative groups - server - yourservername - first storage group - mailbox store - logons

From there, go on the “View” menu on top, and select “add /remove column”.. then add the column named “Total Ops”

After, sort your “ops” column, and if one user is making *WAY* more operations than the others, you’ll probably have your culprit.