SBS 2008 – Troubleshooting and the SBS POP3 Connector

We have a client situation where the POP3 Connector is required.

Once set up, the POP3 Connector did not start pulling e-mail in right away.

When we ran the POP3 Connector retrieve process manually, we received:

Windows SBS POP3 Connector

POP3 e-mail was retrieved with errors.

The Windows SBS POP3 Connector service encountered one or more problems while retrieving your POP3 e-mail. View the event log for more information.

To check the status on any SBS 2008 component, there is a folder in the Event Viewer with an SBS specific log set in it:

Microsoft-Windows-Small Business Server/Operational Log

So, we head into the log to find out just what is happening. It turns out that the error has to do with either the username or password.

When we brought up the user’s POP3 Connector properties, the username was correct, so there must have been two left thumbs typing in the password! :)

After making sure that the password was indeed correct, we ran a manual receive again and this time we received:

Windows SBS POP3 Connector

The POP3 e-mail was retrieved successfully. 

Further POP3 Connector troubleshooting:

• Microsoft KB: 958798 How to enable Verbose logging in the Windows SBS 2008 POP3 Connector.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*All Mac on SBS posts will not be written on a Mac until we replace our now missing iMac! (previous blog post)

Windows Live Writer

SBS 2K3 - All Versions: Getting to know your servers...

We all get to know the temperaments of our client's servers as we monitor their reports on a daily basis.

We get to know which ones sit behind shoddy Internet connections as there are a number of POP3 Connector errors on a regular basis.

We can see security warnings, audit warnings and the like.

However, there are a couple of key ways we can further get to know our SBS boxes and their peculiarities.

One is to setup the Task Manager so that we can get a more thorough look at what is happening on the SBS box at a glance:


Keeping an eye on things as they are happening is a good way to get a deeper feel for how the various components of the server operate.

To do this:

1. Open Task Manager
2. Click View
3. Select Columns
   Click the following (I forget which ones are there by default so excuse any duplication):
1. PID
2. CPU Usage
3. CPU Time
4. Memory Usage
   Memory Usage Delta
5. Peak Memory Usage
6. I/O Read bytes
7. User Name
   Virtual Memory Size
8. I/O Write Bytes
9. I/O Other bytes
10. Click OK

Once you are done clicking, it should look like the following:


Another "at a glance" tool is BGInfo by SysInternals.

Here is a shot of our TechNet Plus software SBS Premium based testbed/lab with the utility's image as a desktop background:


The above is one of the first things seen when logging on to the SBS box before the Server Management Console comes up.

An .ini file for BGInfo can be stored somewhere on the network and used to provide all of the servers on the network with the same settings. This provides a convenient way for us to see the same info on all of the servers.

SysInternal's Utilities Index.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists

*All Mac on SBS posts are posted on our in-house iMac via the Safari Web browser.

SBS - The POP3 Connector

We have a client that has had their ADSL connection killed by what seems to be a spike in the phone system.

Their systems are power isolated, so no equipment was harmed.

However, they have no Internet. We worked a good part of the day today trying to get the ISP to work it out. They are a second tier DSL provider, as the main phone company provides the infrastructure here.

We won't deal with the phone company due to way too many experiences of utter incompetence.

So, we need to be patient.

All of our SBS installations are setup in a primary/secondary mail structure. The SBS box is the primary e-mail server with the ISP's e-mail servers being the secondary ones.

We have e-mail directed to the SBS box via SMTP first. This is done by getting the ISP to point an MX record with the highest priority to the SBS box's static IP. An A record as well as a reverse DNS PTR record are also set to the SBS box.

If, as in this case, there is something that causes the SBS box's Internet connection to be non-functional, we have the ISP's e-mail servers setup with the client's e-mail domain too. This also provides a backup for those times where we need to reboot the server after updating it.

On the SBS box, the POP3 Connector is setup to pull e-mail from the user's e-mail account on the ISP's servers once an hour. This will generally cover any possible connection issues with the SBS box.

So, when we get the bugs worked out, the SBS box will pull all e-mail off of the ISP's servers and deliver them to the user's inbox. There will be no lost e-mail. Given that we will likely be there when this happens, a quick click on the "Retrieve Now" button in the POP3 Connector manager will have their e-mail down immediately.

It's not a perfect system, but it works.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists

SBS - POP3 Connector not pulling e-mail

Every once in a while the POP3 Connector service stops responding.

To date, we have not found any indication of what failed in the service in the logs, even when the logging level was set to Maximum.

When troubleshooting the Connector, make sure to have the ISP credentials for one of your users so you can monitor their inbox.

Restart the service to see if this fixes the problem. Generally it doesn't.

Consistently, we have to reboot the box.

As a rule, we see if we can have an MX record with the highest priority for the client's domain pointing to the SBS static IP to mitigate this problem as well as eliminate the 15 minute lag the client experiences when all e-mail comes in via the ISP.

To complete the MX process, if the ISP is willing, one will need to have the reverse DNS record set for the IP of the SBS box too. This eliminates the possibility that the e-mail will get stopped by spam filters that do a reverse DNS lookup against the sending SMTP server.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists