Need Microsoft Exchange Server support

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zero002021

[H]ard|Gawd
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A client was using 1and1 for domain registration and web hosting of their old site. However, the new website that was being built for them required a more reliable web host, so I transferred their domain to Namecheap and switched them to another web host.

I launched the new website for the client last night, and this morning I got a call that their email wasn't working. I made sure to copy all necessary DNS records (A, MX) from the 1and1 control panel into the control panel at the new host prior to making the switch.

The client is hosting their email on an internal server with a static IP running Microsoft Exchange Server. Does anyone know why their email wouldn't be working?
 
Can you clarify what you mean by "email wasn't working"?

- Can they send email? If so, to everyone or just some people?
- Can they receive email? If so, from everyone or just some people?

Did you refresh the client's DNS settings?
What is the TTL of the DNS records on 1and1 and Namecheap?
 
Well, did you check the resolution by hand from outside? What TTL do the registries serve? If they are too long and nameservers around the Internet have the domain cached, you potentially have to wait the whole TTL until they pick up the new records.
 
- They can't send or receive email.
- The TTL was initially at 43200 (12 hours) when the domain transfer completed but was then set to 300 (5 minutes).

The clients can view the new website on their personal computers, so I know the DNS information is fresh there. However, I don't think the server running Exchange had the DNS manually refreshed. I can ask their admin to do this and see if it makes a difference.
 
Flushing the DNS information on the Exchange server didn't help.

hawk82 said:
www.mxtoolbox.com is your friend. See what the MX record is resolving to. You can also run SMTP tests there.
Also if the new host is using cPanel, make sure the MX record is set to remote.
http://docs.cpanel.net/twiki/bin/view/11_30/CpanelDocs/MXEntry
Remote Mail Exchanger
Click to expand...

- The information I'm seeing in MX Toolbox look correct. Do you see anything wrong that I might be missing? www.mxtoolbox.com/SuperTool.aspx?action=mx:autismspecialty.com

- The mail records are set to remote.
 
If they host mail themselves, nothing should change as long as external mail servers get the correct MX and A records.

What is "mail records are set to remote" supposed to mean?

Just tried to send to info@... but that user is unknown. It went to the right address, though.

Code: 
postfix/smtp[7907]: 58D4A1F1112: to=<[email protected]>, relay=mail.autismspecialty.com[96.39.17.178]:25, delay=31, delays=0.09/0.12/1.6/29, dsn=4.1.1, status=SOFTBOUNCE (host mail.autismspecialty.com[96.39.17.178] said: 550 5.1.1 User unknown (in reply to RCPT TO command))
 
TCM said:
What is "mail records are set to remote" supposed to mean?
Click to expand...

In the control panel, the default setting has email being hosted on the web hosting server. It has to be set to remote/external if you are using your own solution such as Exchange, Google Apps, etc.
 
zero002021 said:
In the control panel, the default setting has email being hosted on the web hosting server. It has to be set to remote/external if you are using your own solution such as Exchange, Google Apps, etc.
Click to expand...

Hm, sounds kind of weird. The only thing that should really matter should be the MX records. I'd look into this.
 
Following up - they had someone take a look at their Exchange server, and it turns out both hard drives on the server had less than 1GB of space remaining. He cleared some space on the server and everything is working again.

Thanks for the help everyone.
 
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