In Exchange 2010, if transaction logs fill a partition so no more logs can be created, are any emails received during that time lost?

Question

Title basically says it all.

Performing some work on a client environment where their backups stopped running and their Exchange transaction logs filled up the partition they resided on.

I'm just wondering if once I backup their logs and clear space, will the emails that were received while the log partition was full be received or are they lost? Hopefully there is a queue somewhere else that will forward emails after cleared but I'm not sure.

Thanks in advance.

score 5 · Accepted Answer · edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:13

5

Depends... I'm assuming you have plenty of database space and have just exhausted your logs space.

You should be able to see the queued messages in the Exchange System Manager. Go to Toolbox -> Queue Viewer.

You'll see the messages slated for delivery in the "MAPI Delivery" queue.

If this is a virtual machine, you can expand the log partition live and the mail will begin to flow until you can force a full transaction log backup.

You can force the queue to flush by selecting the appropriate option when right-clicking on the queue.

edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:13

Community

1

answered Feb 24 '13 at 15:10

ewwhite

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There is plenty of DB space on a separate partition, correct. I'll take a look at the Queue, thanks for the suggestion. – Windows Ninja Feb 24 '13 at 15:16

score 3 · Answer 2 · answered Feb 24 '13 at 15:20

The Edge Transport is a separate component in all Exchange versions, maintaining its own queues. As long as you have not depleted the queue database's storage space as well, the messages were queued and are waiting for the message store to become available again.

If you have depleted the storage space and messages could not be queued, the sending mail servers would have been notified about a temporary delivery problem, would queue the messages on their side (SMTP servers typically queue for several days) and inform the senders upon message expiration with a non-delivery report.

In Exchange 2010, if transaction logs fill a partition so no more logs can be created, are any emails received during that time lost?

2 Answers2