Comments on: SMTP Server: Error opening mail box: Database is corrupt — Cannot allocate space

By: maggs

maggs — Fri, 13 Aug 2004 11:55:38 +0000

Shut down the server, rename the mail.box to mailold.box, and restart the server it will recreate mail.box and route mail, then open mailold.box in domino administrator and copy and paste any messages into mail.box to get them to route.

By: newcombj

newcombj — Fri, 13 Aug 2004 10:32:41 +0000

I’ve looked over the replies you have received to this question … and everyone has a valid suggestion or comment.

Here is what I would do: First, are you sure that the database that is corrupt isn’t one (or more) of your mail files? If so, you need to locate that file and fix it.

If the error is simply referring to the mail.box on the server… you have (obviously) to remove the corruption to fix your issue. So…you have two possible methods for doing this….

1) Using the Domino Admin Client, shut down the router and all processes actively accessing the mail.box. Once you have done that, go to the server console in question and run the following command ” l compact -c -i -L mail.box “. That compact will fix a corrupt mail database showing that error 95%+ of the time, but the kicker is NO ONE can be accessing the database at the same time the server is compacting. Watch the console… it should show a message saying compact complete X% recovered… when you see that the command worked and finished. Don’t forget to restart your tasks afterwards or restart the server.

2) The other way to approach this is the old Domino standard… shut down the server… use the file system to find your corrupt file, delete it (or rename it) and restart the server. When it finds no database there the server will create a brand new one (no corruption) as it comes up.

Process 2 works great with databases like mail.box… but most users take a dim view of losing their mail database so try Process 1 first.

Oh, and just for all you old hackers out there…there is a third option. Replicating a new copy. Not worth the trouble if it’s a database like mail.box… delete and recreate that, but if you are at the end of your rope with a user’s mail file…..

a) open the database in your workspace.
b) right click on the database icon in your workspace.
c) select Database, and then New Copy.
d) bring the database down to your workspace. Notes will not copy anything it doesn’t recognize or understand… and the corruption will be stripped from the database (potentially with the corrupt document as well).
e) Delete the original and put the new copy from your workspace back on the server.

This trick fixes corruption (and a few other things) but will break replication unless you have a utility like Power Tools where you can modify the replication ID of the database. Be aware of that so you will take the necessary steps to recreate necessary replication for laptop users etc if you use this trick.

Hey good luck fixing this error and I hope this helped.

By: jeffersweldon

jeffersweldon — Fri, 13 Aug 2004 08:57:15 +0000

I think you can have up to 10 mail boxes but I’ve found that performance doesn’t get any better after 5 and the difference between 3 and 5 isn’t much. One of the mail boxes can still get corrupt no matter how many you have. Using the server console type in the command “load fixup” and this will run the fixup utility on all databases including mail.box, this way anything else needing fixed up will be covered. Running the command will slow down your server so it is best to run it during times when traffic is lower. You can also right click on it and do fixup and compact. If you rename your mailbox and have mail in your old mailbox you can cut and paste the mail into the new mailbox too.
Good luck.

By: winmart

winmart — Fri, 13 Aug 2004 04:36:36 +0000

Set your server configuration to use two mail.boxes under the router/SMTP tab. And then as Zimone states, down the server, rename the mail.box and restart which will create two new ones. This will allow more resilience, better through-put, and should be less prone to corrupt when compact runs.
Winston Martin

By: nimbusdeveloper

nimbusdeveloper — Fri, 13 Aug 2004 03:17:04 +0000

Check the free disc space on your server and of course
if this happens “too” often. check the hardware. we had a nearly similar problem with a network card crossing jordan…..

greets

michael

By: nimbusdeveloper

nimbusdeveloper — Fri, 13 Aug 2004 03:16:30 +0000

Check the free disc space on your server and of course
if this happens “too” often. check the hardware. we had a nearly similar problem with a network card crossing jordan…..

greets

michael