A Tip From Kinetic Computer Services ...

OpenMsgStore 0x8004001d Failures In Blackberry Enterprise Server Express On Microsoft Exchange 2010 After Adding Devices or Migrating Mailboxes

Description of the Problem

On Blackberry Enterprise Server Express 5.0, some devices are not synching with their Exchange 2010 mailboxes. On the "Manage Users" page of the Blackberry Administration Service, the "Last contact date" column for these devices shows an old date and time and the "State" field (after expanding the "More..." column) shows "failed". The affected users can access their Exchange mailboxes via other means (local Outlook, OWA, etc.), and you are able to send messages to the affected devices via PIN. Some or most of your Blackberry users or devices may not be experiencing any problems at all.

Restarting Exchange and BES do not resolve the problem. Furthermore, if you try deleting the Blackberry user from BES and reinitializing the device, the initialization process hangs.

In the Windows event logs on the BES server, you observe two events for each failed device upon BES startup: Event 20400, which includes the text "OpenMsgStore (0x8004011d) failed", and Event 20154, which states "User [user name] not started."

You may attempt to run the "handheldcleanup -u" utility, but after selecting a MAPI profile, it fails with the message, "OpenMsgStore() for this profile failed (8004011d)"

Your BES may have been working fine for a while. These problems started or became worse after you added some Blackberry users or migrated their mailboxes to Exchange 2010. You now have more than 15 Blackberry users.

Solution

This is a known issue with Blackberry Server Express 5.0 when running in a Microsoft Exchange 2010 environment with more than 15 to 20 Blackberry users. The issue has to do with Exchange 2010 throttling policies. Throttling policies are enforced in Exchange 2010 to prevent a single Exchange user from hogging system resources. The default throttling policy limits each user to a maximum of 20 concurrent sessions.

With an unmodified installation of BES Express 5.0, the Blackberry services account - that is, the Windows account that is used to start the Blackberry services in services.msc - inherits the default throttling policy and is therefore limited to 20 concurrent sessions. This limitation creates the "OpenMsgStore 0x8004011d" problems described above when the number of Blackberry users with Exchange 2010 mailboxes approaches 20. It not only causes some devices to stop working, but it also inhibits the operation of utilities such as HandheldCleanup.exe and IEMSTest.exe. (The number of working devices may be less than 20 because the BES services account may be using some sessions for other processes.)

The problem is resolved by creating and applying a new throttling policy that raises the 20 concurrent session limit for the Blackberry services account. (Best practice is to avoid using the regular domain administrator account and to create a special Blackberry services account, typically named "BESAdmin".) There are numerous guides on the web showing how to do this. They can be accessed by searching on the terms "bes exchange 2010 throttling."

If you do not feel confident following an online guide, you might need to obtain telephone-based support from Blackberry. For more information, visit:

http://www.blackberry.com/besc, which redirects to:

https://besc.webapps.blackberry.com/besc/dashboard/

Or phone Blackberry support at 888-746-5831.

This tip is a free service of Kinetic Computer Services - professional network consultants serving the Houston area since 1998.

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