Troubleshooting 'Exchange 2013 Not Receiving External/Internal Emails' Issue

It is a very common problem with the all versions of Exchange Server including Exchange 2013 where user doesn’t receive any email from outside as well as inside of the Exchange network. However, administrator has configured all the setting according to Exchange Server 2013 guidelines but still there is some possibility to face 'Exchange Server not receiving emails' problem. Possibly these kinds of error usually occurs due to Internal DNS related issue in Server.

So today we’re going though few easier steps to fix this email receiving problem occur with Exchange Server 2013 SP1 too.

How to Fix Internal Email Receiving Issue in Exchange

All internal transmission should work if Exchange 2013 has been installed with minimal setting. Every user should be able to receive and send emails among all the users on Exchange. But it doesn’t work always. 

If you’re also facing the same issue after configuring all the setting in Exchange 2013, check and apply below setting to fix this issue.

But before try the solution, make sure that domain local DNS IP (not 127.0.0.1) is set on NIC of Exchange Server and nslookup is working fine and resolving. Now follow the steps-

1. If you setup secondary DNS IP in the NIC of Exchange server, then delete it and restart Frontend transport service and Microsoft Exchange transport.

2. Now login Exchange Control Panel, and navigate to 'Servers'. Choose your Exchange Server and click 'Edit'. Select DNS Lookup and setup local DNS server IP on Exchange server’s DNS lookups.

3. Now add your local DNS Server IP in Internal DNS lookups from Custom Settings options.

That’s it. After manually adding above setting, internal emails flow will start to your mailbox.

Fix External Email Receiving in Exchange 2013 

You can check here incoming SMTP emails status by Microsoft Connectivity Analyzer. It will display an error which specifies outside email receiving problem in Exchange Server 2013. 

Now do the same as we applied above for internal emails. But this time, set the local DNS Server in External DNS lookups from Servers Settings option. And restart Frontend transport service and Microsoft Exchange transport.

Apart from this solution, you can also modify Host file to fix this issue. Simply open Host file of your Exchange Server and add the following host entries in the file.

10.10.10.100         mailserver

10.10.10.100         mailserver.yourdomain.com

That’s it. After applied above method or modifying Host file, it will restart Exchange transport services and start working.

Unexpectedly, if above methods didn’t work for you; check Firewall logs, transport logs, Exchange server event viewer, and Microsoft remote connectivity analyzer. You will get more hint why receiving emails problem occurring in Exchange 2013.

However, if your Exchange Server is not a newly configured server and you’re facing this issue lately; possibility is your Exchange mailbox has been corrupted. 

You may try Stellar Phoenix Mailbox Exchange Recovery tool to recover your data from Exchange server. This trusted utility supports Exchange Server 2013 along with other earlier Exchange version including 2010, 2007, and so on.

Hope, above solution worked for you.