Topic Last Modified: 2006-10-04

The Microsoft® Exchange Server Analyzer Tool queries the Exchange_Queue Windows® Management Instrumentation (WMI) class to determine the values of the following attributes for the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) queues of the SMTP virtual server.

LinkId

Indicates the identifier for the link that contains the queue.

QueueId

Indicates the identifier of the queue.

QueueName

Indicates the name of the queue.

VirtualMachine

Indicates the name of the virtual machine that contains the queue.

VirtualServerName

Indicates the name of the virtual server that the queue is on.

MessageCount

Indicates the number of messages in the queue.

The Exchange Server Analyzer uses the information obtained here to query the Exchange_QueuedSMTPMessage WMI class for the values of the following attributes of the messages in the queue:

Recipients

Indicates the recipients of the message.

Received

Indicates the received time stamp for the message.

MessageId

Indicates the identifier of the queued message.

StateRetry

Indicates that transmission is being retried for a message that was not delivered successfully.

Finally, the Exchange Server Analyzer uses the data obtained here to query the Active Directory® directory service for the following values of each Recipient object. The Exchange Server Analyzer then determines whether the recipient is a user, a distribution group, a public folder, or a public folder store:

distinguishedName

Indicates the distinguished name of the object.

msExchHomeServerName

Indicates the server the recipient is homed on.

homeMDB

Indicates the mailbox store of the recipient.

If the Exchange Server Analyzer determines that at least 25 percent of the messages stuck in the queue are addressed, in either the To: or Cc: fields, to recipients homed on a particular server, the Exchange Server Analyzer displays a warning.

If the Exchange Server Analyzer determines that at least 50 percent of the messages stuck in the queue are addressed, in either the To: or Cc: fields, to recipients homed on a particular server, the Exchange Server Analyzer displays an error.

This warning or error means that the server that is identified is a common destination for messages that are stuck in an SMTP queue.

To address this issue, the server should be investigated as follows for configuration issues or other anomalies that could cause messages to queue for it:

For more information about how to troubleshoot SMTP queues, see the following Exchange resources:

For more information about the effect of distribution group restriction on Exchange Server mail flow, see the following Microsoft Knowledge Base articles: