Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!apple!portal!sv!daven
From: daven@svc.portal.com
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.comm
Subject: Re: Microsoft Mail data file corruption problem
Message-ID: <1990Dec7.223116.17888@svc.portal.com>
Date: 7 Dec 90 22:31:16 GMT
References: <14591@crdgw1.crd.ge.com>
Organization: Software Ventures
Lines: 55

In article <14591@crdgw1.crd.ge.com> morrow@rdsunx.crd.ge.com (madeline e morrow) writes:
>We have a problem with our Microsoft Mail server that Microsoft says is due to
>a bad interaction between MS Mail servers and SAM (from Symantec).  The claim 
>is that SAM can corrupt the MS Mail data file.  We are using Microsoft Mail 
>2.0b on OS 6.05.  We are also using Cayman's GatorMail-M SMTP gateway.  The
>symptom is that GatorMail-M crashes 6 times a day - always with an heap access
> error, and the Mac has to be restarted to get it to run again.  We've been 
>sending countless logs to the vendor, and neither we nor they can ever find an
>error when the gateway crashes.  We used HeapFixer so the system has a megabyte
>of heap, and GatorMail-M has 400K of heap.

Madeline, I take it that the MS Mail server and the GatorMail gateway are
running on the same Mac. Have you tried running them on seperate Macs? (I'm
not sure this is possible, but some MS Mail gateways can run on Macs other
than the MS Mail server) If you can run them seperately, then see if the
MS Mail server crashes. Also, are you running both on a Mac that is also
an AppleShare server?

>Microsoft has confirmed that our Microsoft Mail data file has a problem.
>Microsoft thinks SAM did it - but they say that SAM errors happen in random 
>places and it's very hard to replicate what went wrong.

Sounds like a job for someone with the latest Jasik Debugger. I tend to be
distrustful of anyone that blames someone else's code or INIT. However, I've
been in the position of knowing someone's poorly written INIT crashed my
program, so there are such things as valid finger pointing. Who knows in this
case though - I've met the MS Mail programming team, and they do seem to know
their stuff.

>Microsoft has a recovery program that may be able to fix our MS Mail data file
>However, it recovers deleted mail as well as current mail and deleted userid's.

Not a good option! And the moving of mail from one server to a newly created
server is even worse!

>This person thinks that disk parity or memory errors can corrupt the MS Mail
>data file.

Memory and disk errors could cause the problem. Have you had the server's
hard drive checked recently. There's several utlities that will scan a drive
for read/write errors. However, if the MS Mail server's database is always
corrupted in the same manner, I say the problem lies beyond hardeware.

>My question to Microsoft Mail users out there - have you had 
>corrupted MS Mail data files, and if so, do you know what caused it, and what 
>did you do to fix it?  What about daily backups of the data file?

Daily backup sounds like an excellent idea!


-- 
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dave Newman - Sofware Ventures        | daven@svc.portal.com | AppleLink: D0025
Berkeley, CA  (415) 644-3232          | AOL: MicroPhone      | CIS: 76004,2161
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------