XCON: MTA Continuously Dialing RAS Connection

• Microsoft Exchange Server, version 4.0

SYMPTOMS

The Microsoft Exchange Message Transfer Agent (MTA) might continuously attempt to initiate a RAS connection after a communications error. The MTA might fail to wait the full time out period as defined in the Open Interval value.

CAUSE

This is caused by the way that the MTA responds to certain RAS error conditions.

STATUS

Microsoft has confirmed this to be a problem in Microsoft Exchange Server version 4.0. This problem was corrected in the latest Microsoft Exchange Server U.S. Service Pack. For information on obtaining the Service Pack, query on the following word in the Microsoft Knowledge Base (without the spaces):

   S E R V P A C K

MORE INFORMATION

The Open Interval value is defined on the Messaging Defaults tab of the MTA Site Configuration properties page in the Microsoft Exchange Administrator program. The default value is 600 seconds.

This error condition is usually characterized by the following sequence of Event ID's:

Event ID Description -------- -----------

9311     A RAS communications error has occurred...
      RAS error code returned: 629
1028     A connection error occurred...
      Error code=29954
1294     An association with entity...
      RAS connection ended abnormally.
289      A connection to...
      RAS could not be opened.

      the display characteristics of Windows NT Event Viewer.