Hello, I need some help!
I'm new to this company, and I've inherited a screwed up Exchange server. So I'm not sure how to proceed to fix the problem. First let me tell you what I started with, and the steps I took.
This company is running Exchange 2007. and tried to make the migration to Exchange 2013 last year. They installed Server 2012 R2 onto a server installed Exchangne 2013. No issues. Then they installed CU16.
Exchange was up an running. The Exchange Administrative Center EAC website was working. And so was the Exchange Management Shell EMS. They transfered one mailbox, but ran into a problem, they could either couldn't send and email, or they could not receive an email. No one knows which one wasn't working.
One note, my current manager, hired a local Exchange Expert to assist with the upgrade. He told him that to install the CU16, all he had to do was run setup. No mention of the running any of the prep steps first.
So they transfered the one mailbox back, and then they turned off the server until last week.
So my IT Manager talked to the consultant again, and he had him install CU20. Again without running any of the prep tools. The CU20 failed to installed, and both the EAC and EMS were both down.
This is where I stepped in. I was told that we have full server backups before CU20 install.
The CU20 update could not be uninstalled. All of the Exchange processes are stopped and set to disabled. I enabled all of the services, but one did not start. One of the Unified Messaging services does not start.
I tried to reinstall cU20, but it failed in step 1 of 9. After researching the error in Step 1, I found that the Certificates assigned to https: in IIS Manager had expired. They had setup the server's certificate for legacy.server.com. But that cert Expired March 2018.
So I changed the certs for now back to the self created Exchange cert, and tried to run the CU20 again. This time it failed in Step 7 of 9. The good news now the EMS is working. So I can try to repair the error. All Exchange services now start! Making progress...
Researching that error indicated a problem with the OWA virtualdirectories, so I ran the following steps.
"I am presenting a simple scenario in which I describes how to remove the owa virtual Directories and how to re-create the owa virtual directories in Exchange 2013 for both Default Website and Exchange Back End
Remove the owa virtual Directories
[PS] C:\Windows\system32>Remove-OwaVirtualDirectory “ServerName\owa (Default Web Site)”
Confirm Are you sure you want to perform this action? Outlook Web App virtual directory “ServerName\owa (Default Web Site)” is being removed. [Y] Yes [A] Yes to All [N] No [L] No to All [?] Help (default is “Y”): y
[PS] C:\Windows\system32>Remove-OwaVirtualDirectory “ServerName\owa (exchange back end)”
Confirm Are you sure you want to perform this action? Outlook Web App virtual directory “ServerName\owa (exchange back end)” is being removed. [Y] Yes [A] Yes to All [N] No [L] No to All [?] Help (default is “Y”): y
Re-Create the owa virtual Directories
[PS] C:\Windows\system32>New-OwaVirtualDirectory -InternalUrl “https://ServerName/owa” -ExternalUrl “https://mail. domain.com/owa”
[PS] C:\Windows\system32>New-OwaVirtualDirectory -InternalUrl “https://ServerName/owa” -ExternalUrl “https://mail. domain.com/owa” -WebSiteName “Exchange Back End”"
The remove commands worked just fine. However I got an error when I tried new-OVAVirtalDirectory commands. Worse my EMS died too. So now I've got no access to Exchange at all. Finally left with no choice, I decided to roll back to the backup
when Exchange was supposed to be working.
After the restore, the trust relationship was broken with the active directory. Fixed that. Changed the expired certificates. But OWA and EAC come to the following failed page.
Server Error in '/' Application.
The resource cannot be found.
Description: HTTP 404. The resource you are looking for (or one of its dependencies) could have been removed, had its name changed, or is temporarily unavailable. Please review the following URL and make sure that it is spelled
correctly.
Requested URL: /owa/auth/logon.aspx
Version Information: Microsoft .NET Framework Version:4.0.30319; ASP.NET Version:4.7.2106.0
So much for having a working Exchange server. So first I applied the prep commands, just in case they had not been run. Restarted the server, no luck. Trying reinstall CU16, it failed during the OWA upgrade.
So I started to poke around on the console and I ran get-ovavirtualdirectory pnly to have it on;y showed the virtualdirectories from the old exchange server, nothing for the Exchange 2013 server.
So I tried using the new-owavirtualdirectory command but I got an error. Trying to remove it also failed.
I sure am missing the old Exchange System Manager right now.
So I'm at the point, anyone have any ideas on how I should proceed to fix OWA, EAC, or my virtual directories? I was looking at the set-OWACirtualDirectory command as a possible solution.
I suspect AD is the problem, so I don't think wiping out my server, and reinstalling it will fix it.
Suggestions? Help?!?!?
John
I'm an old IT tech who remembers Microsoft mail, exchange 5.0, 5.5, 2000, 2003, 2007, 2010. I'm a loss trying to use the shell to fix this. I hope someone can help...