Can't add subscriber

[admin_2]

We are having problems adding a subscriber in Unity 2.4 Build 2.4.6.102. His mailbox and Unity account was originally created on the Unity server and then deleted. Not sure what order as I was not involved. I created his mailbox on another server in the same site. When I am trying to import him into Unity as an existing user, I see what appears to be the old mailbox that was created on the unity server itself. I then try to import it and it says that the "object with alias userid" on the title bar. The subscriber screen comes up and says "Deleted Object" and "This object has been deleted" below that. I see the call handler in exchange but his mailbox has no voicemail attributes as Unity appears to think that his mailbox was on the Unity server and not on the other mail server. I have tried to restart Unity and restart the Unity server altogether without any luck. The mailbox that existed on the Unity server is in not there. Any suggestions?<br><br><br>

[#2]

When you say the mailbox is not there on the Unity server, do you mean the Exchange mail account is not there? If not, can you pop open the Exchange administrator and make sure there is no mail account for this guy still on our box (it may not show up in the SA).

Also, try grabbing the Directory Walker utility off the 2.x Tools page on AnswerMonkey and running it to see if it finds any orphaned call handler(s) for this guy lingering. 2.4.6 should be smart enough to deal with a stranded primary call handler hanging around but it'd be good to check anyway.

Did you try using the Import tool (under the Unity program group) to import the exchange account as a subscriber? If you use this you can force it to show you only exchange mailboxes on a specific Exchange server. I'd be curious to see what this does as opposed to importing via the SA (which is what I assume you're doing).


Jeff Lindborg
Unity Product Architect/Answer Monkey
Cisco Systems
lindborg@cisco.com
http://www.AnswerMonkey.net (new page for Unity support tools and scripts)

[#3]

Sounds like you have an orphaned call handler for this guys box. DBWalker might find it but if you are using unity 2.4.6 go to the commserver dir then find the folder marked localize and run the syscheck utility. Tha t will tell you if his box is orphaned. If it is, the only way I know of to get rid of it is to use the dOh and either set all of the unity attribuets to the default of just a ordinary exchange user or to completly remove the box from the dOh. But doing that will also kill the exchange box.

[#4]

It's important to note the differences between an orphaned call handler and a stranded mail user.

A stranded mail user would typically come about if someone removed a Unity installation without running a proper uninstall and it leaves mail users in Exchange marked as subscribers but they have no corresponding primary call handler objects. This will prevent you from being able to import users and is my guess as to what's going on here.

An orphaned call handler typically happens when someone deletes the mail user in Exchange directly without removing them as a Unity subscriber first. 2.4.6 deals with that (or should) on the fly. If it finds a conflicting primary call handler that doesn't point to a valid mail user any longer it should just delete it and create a new one. I've tested this many times and it works OK.

DBWalker (the latest version) has an option to remove stranded subscriber information automatically (in addition to removing orphaned call handlers). This is safer than doing it through the DOH.


Jeff Lindborg
Unity Product Architect/Answer Monkey
Cisco Systems
lindborg@cisco.com
http://www.AnswerMonkey.net (new page for Unity support tools and scripts)

[#5]

There was an orphaned call handler for the user as his mailbox was on the Unity server and then deleted. I created his mailbox on another server and tried to import him, but the Unity SA for whatever reason would only show the deleted mailbox information for the mailbox that was originally created on the Unity server. I did stop and start Unity and rebooted the server as well, but I still had the same issue.

Per your suggestion, Jeff, I imported the user using the Import utility and was able to import him fine. I've run into many an orhpaned call handler before and this was not because of an orphaned call handler. The Unity SA for some reason still thought the mailbox was on the Unity server as it showed the home server as being Unity during the importing of the subscriber in the Unity SA, even though it was deleted and didn't show up in the Exchange Admin, even in the mailbox resources section under the private information store. Sometimes a deleted mailbox will show up under this section in the Exchange admin program for whatever reason, but it wasn't even there. I thought for sure that a reboot of the Unity box would have solved the problem but it didn't. Thanks for the Import suggestion as it did work.

[#6]

Hmmm... that's pretty odd. The SA uses the in memory cache of the mailuser table but this refreshes every 10 minutes and a restart of Unity will force it to build from scratch so I'm a bit perplexed as to what would be going on. The only thing I can think of is one or more properties on the mail user you're trying to import was flagged and throwing the SA off making it assume the home server was the Unity box and the import tool doesn't make the same check or some such thing (although this seems unlikely based on your description).

I'm assuming there's something odd that happened with this guy that we're not thinking of that's tripping us up. I can't think of what that would be off hand, however. If you can repro it again at some point, perhaps you can help us figure out what's going on by letting us into your system while it's in that state and we can take a look under the covers to see what's happening.


Jeff Lindborg
Unity Product Architect/Answer Monkey
Cisco Systems
lindborg@cisco.com
http://www.AnswerMonkey.net (new page for Unity support tools and scripts)