Applies to: Exchange Server 2013
Topic Last Modified: 2012-09-25
Content conversion tracing captures failures in the MAPI content conversion that's performed by the Mailbox Transport service on inbound and outbound messages on a Microsoft Exchange Server 2013 Mailbox server.
The Mailbox Transport service on a Mailbox server is responsible for the content conversion of messages sent to and from mailbox recipients. Specifically, the Mailbox Transport Submission service converts outbound messages from mailbox users from MAPI to MIME. The Mailbox Transport Delivery service converts inbound messages for mailbox users from MIME to MAPI. Content conversion tracing is responsible for capturing these MAPI conversion failures.
The categorizer in the Transport service on a Mailbox server is responsible for the content conversion of all messages sent to external recipients. Content conversion tracing doesn't capture any content conversion failures that the categorizer in the Transport service encounters as it converts messages sent to external recipients.
Contents
Configure content conversion tracing
Configure content conversion tracing
Content conversion tracing is controlled by the following parameters in the Set-TransportService and Set-MailboxTransportService cmdlets in the Exchange Management Shell:
- ContentConversionTracingEnabled This
parameter enables or disables content conversion tracing in the
Transport service on the Mailbox server, or in the Mailbox
Transport service on the Mailbox server. Valid values for this
parameter are
$true
and$false
. The default value is$false
. If your Exchange organization contains multiple Mailbox servers, you must enable content conversion tracing on each Mailbox server.
- PipelineTracingPath Although this
parameter is associated with pipeline tracing, it also specifies
the root location of the content conversion tracing files. The
default location in the Transport service is
%ExchangeInstallPath%TransportRoles\Logs\Hub\PipelineTracing
. The default location in the Mailbox Transport service is%ExchangeInstallPath%TransportRoles\Logs\Mailbox\PipelineTracing
.The path must be local to the Exchange computer.
Content conversion creates a folder named
ContentConversionTracing
in the path specified by the
PipelineTracingPath parameter. In the
ContentConversionTracing
folder, content conversion
creates two subfolders: InboundFailures
and
OutboundFailures
. The InboundFailures
folder contains the information from inbound message content
conversion failures. The OutboundFailures
folder
contains the information from outbound message content conversion
failures.
The maximum size for all the files in the
InboundFailures
folder or the
OutboundFailures
folder is 128 megabytes (MB).
Content conversion tracing doesn't use circular logging to remove
old files based on the age or size of the files. As soon as the
maximum size for a folder is reached, content conversion tracing
stops writing information to the folder. If you want to make sure
that the maximum folder size limits aren't exceeded, you can create
a scheduled task that periodically moves the content conversion
tracing files to a different location.
The permissions required on the folders and subfolders used in content conversion tracing are as follows:
- Administrators: Full Control
- Network Service: Full Control
- System: Full Control
Caution: |
---|
Content conversion tracing copies the complete contents of email messages. To avoid the unwanted disclosure of confidential information, you need to set appropriate security permissions on the location of the content conversion tracing files. |
How content conversion tracing works
When the content conversion of an inbound message fails, a delivery status notification (DSN) that has the status code 5.6.0 is sent to the message sender. If content conversion tracing is enabled, the failure information is recorded at the time that the 5.6.0 DSN message is generated. Each content conversion error generates two separate files.
A content conversion error that occurs when an inbound message is converted from MIME to MAPI generates the following two files in the InboundFailures folder:
- <GUID>.eml This file contains the
failed message in text format.
- <GUID>.txt This file contains the
exception description, conversion results, conversion options, and
message size limits imposed on all messages by the Mailbox
Transport service.
A content conversion error that occurs when an outbound message is converted from MAPI to MIME generates the following two files in the OutboundFailures folder:
- <GUID>.msg This file contains the
failed message in the Microsoft Outlook message format.
- <GUID>.txt This file contains the
exception description, conversion results, conversion options, and
message size limits imposed on all messages by the store
driver.
The placeholder <GUID> is the same in both
file names. Each content conversion error generates a different
GUID that's used in the file names of the corresponding message and
text files. An example of a GUID that's used in the file names is
038b930e-61fd-4bfd-b9b4-0374c18b73f7
.
Considerations for content conversion tracing
You can leave content conversion tracing enabled for proactive monitoring. Or, you can enable content conversion tracing to troubleshoot a specific failure event. You can usually reproduce inbound content conversion failures by asking the recipient of the 5.6.0 DSN message to resend the original message.
Inbound content conversion failures are the most common. Some of the reasons for inbound content conversion errors include the following:
- Violations of message size limits These
message size limits are imposed by the Mailbox Transport service to
help prevent denial of service attacks (DoS). These message limits
are listed in the <GUID>.txt file. These message
limits include the following:
- MaxMimeTextHeaderLength This limit
specifies the maximum number of text characters that can be used in
a MIME header. The value is 2000.
- MaxMimeSubjectLength This limit
specifies the maximum number of text characters that can be used in
the subject line. The value is 255.
- MSize This limit specifies the maximum
message size. The value is 2147483647 bytes.
- MaxMimeRecipients This limit specifies
the total number of recipients allowed in the To, Cc, and Bcc
fields. The value is 12288.
- MaxRecipientPropertyLength This limit
specifies the maximum number of text characters that can be used in
a recipient description. The value is 1000.
- MaxBodyPartsTotal This limit specifies
the maximum number of message parts that can be used in a MIME
multipart message. The value is 250.
- MaxEmbeddedMessageDepth This limit
specifies the maximum number of forwarded messages that can exist
in a message. The value is 30.
- MaxMimeTextHeaderLength This limit
specifies the maximum number of text characters that can be used in
a MIME header. The value is 2000.
- Failure to convert an inbound iCalendar message to a meeting
request RFC 2445 defines iCalendar as a
standard for calendar data exchange. Specific causes of the
conversion failure include the following:
- Incorrect use of iCalendar by the sending agent.
- Constructs of iCalendar that can't be supported by the Outlook
or Exchange calendar schema.
- Incorrect use of iCalendar by the sending agent.
- Failures caused by badly formatted MIME
messages Unsolicited commercial email or spam
messages may have formatting errors in the message header, such as
unmatched quotation marks in recipient descriptions. A much smaller
number of failures caused by badly formatted MIME messages are
considered bugs.
Outbound content conversion failures are much less common than inbound failures. When outbound failures occur, they are usually caused by Exchange code bugs or corrupted message content.