Troubleshooting MSExchangeRepl: Resolving Issues with Constant Stops and Restarts

In Exchange Server, the Microsoft Exchange Replication Service (MSExchangeRepl.exe) is a very important service. It has a number of responsibilities. The service is responsible to,

• Issue mount and dismount operations to the Information Store.
• Initiate recovery action on storage when database failures are reported by the Information Store.
• Detect unexpected database failures.
• Work as the administrative interface for management tasks.

Sometimes, you notice through the monitoring system that the service is stopped. When you try to start it, it immediately goes back to the stopped state. In case of Database Availability Group (DAG), you may notice that the replication between the active and passive copy is either not happening or not healthy. When you investigate, you may find the below events in the Event Viewer.

In the System Log, you may notice the event ID 7031 with the following description:

The Microsoft Exchange DAG Management service terminated unexpectedly. It has done this 1 time(s). The following corrective action will be taken in 5000 milliseconds: Restart the service.

In the Application Log, you might notice the event ID 4999 in the MSExchangeCommon source with the following description.

Watson report about to be sent for process id: 10420, with parameters: E12IIS, DART-DBG-AMD64, 15.00.1130.007, MSExchangeMailboxAssistants, M.Exchange.Assistants, M.E.A.TimeBasedAssistantController.UpdateWorkCycle, System.ArgumentOutOfRangeException, ff31, 15.00.1130.005.

If you set the service to start automatically or even start it manually, it will not start. Let’s see how to resolve the MSExchangeRepl keeps stopping or restarting issue.

Possible Solutions to Resolve the MSExchangeRepl keeps Stopping Issue

First, re-trace what happened or see the changes that were done. You may notice things, like installation of updates, changes to the server, or any maintenance work. This will help to understand where the problem might be.

To investigate the issue, you can also run the below command. This will provide more information on the errors.

Wevtutil.exe cl "Microsoft-Exchange-MailboxDatabaseFailureItems/Operational"

Then, you can use the Test-MRSHealth command as given below.

Test-MRSHealth <server name> -MonitoringContext:$true

A common issue is corruption in the event viewer logs. So, you can try to clear the event logs from the following location:

Applications and Services Logs/Microsoft/Exchange/MailboxDatabaseFailureItems/Operational.

To clear the event logs, follow these steps:

• Open the Event Viewer.
• Navigate to the event location (see above).

• Right-click on the Operational node and click on Clear Log.

This will clear the log. Now, try to start the service.

Next, you can also check if the Exchange Server has the right resources to run the services. There might be an increase in load or increase in the number of mailboxes. This will affect the server performance and also the running services, especially replication services. Performance of the server can also be affected by a hardware fault.

Replication can also be affected by issues with DNS. You must ensure that DNS registration is enabled on all network cards in the Database Availability Group (DAG).

If the above solutions fail, it means there is corruption in the databases. In this case, you need to move the data from the database to a new database. If the database is not mounting due to dirty shutdown state, you can try the ESEUtil with the soft recovery to try to clear any possible corrupted items.

First, you need to run the ESEUtil /mh command (as given below) to know the state of the database.

Eseutil /mh <database file>

You may notice the State and Log Required.

After this command, you need to run the ESEUTIL /r command to perform the soft recovery.

ESEUTIL /r <log prefix> /L <path to log files> /d <path to database file>

If this doesn’t work, you can run the hard recovery. But hard recovery is not recommended as the process requires a lot of storage and it purges anything that is deemed corrupted in the database, resulting in data loss.

Alternative Recovery Solution

When it comes to database recovery, you need the assurance that all the data can be retrieved and extracted with no issues. For hassle-free recovery from corrupted databases, you can take the help of Exchange Recovery Software, such as Stellar Repair for Exchange. With this application, you can open multiple EDB files (healthy or corrupted) of any size and of any Exchange Server version. You can browse through the data stores and granularly export the data to PST and other file formats. You can use the application to export the EDB data directly to Office 365 or another Exchange Server with automatic mailbox mapping and parallel exports. You can process user mailboxes, user archives, shared mailboxes, disabled mailboxes, and public folders.

Conclusion

Above, we have discussed the MSExchangeRepl keeps stopping the problem. We have also discussed some possible ways to troubleshoot and resolve the problem. In case the problem has occurred due to corruption in the databases, then the best option is to use an advanced application, like Stellar Repair for Exchange. This application can easily recover data from corrupt databases, with ease and peace of mind.

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About The Author

Shelly Bhardwaj

I am a Product Consultant and is associated with Stellar Data Recovery from last 8 years. I write about the latest technology tips and provide custom solutions related to Exchange Server, Office 365, MS Outlook, and many other Email Clients & different flavors of OS Servers. Read More