System Attendant Service and Error 1053: Could not start the Microsoft Exchange System Attendant service

When Exchange Server is installed, many background processes are also installed. These background processes are called services. Many of these services can get started automatically by Service Control Manager when OS is launched, while some need manual intervention. Services run independently from any application. Many Exchange components are implemented as services and many need services to perform successfully.  One of the Exchange Server services is System Attendant service.

System Attendant service is a collection of sub components working together to proxy Active Directory requests and regulating internal Exchange Server functions. Its main functions are to forward directory search to catalog server, generate addresses, and maintain authorizations and memberships.  Also many other processes and services, like mounting the database, need System Attendant.

When Exchange Server is installed, a System Attendant mailbox is also created along with the service. The System Attendant Mailbox consists of a mailbox object and a configuration object. You can also use the service to send and receive Exchange monitoring messages for the Link Monitoring Service.

Sometimes users cannot logon to the Exchange Server because System Attendant Service was not able to start. You get an error message,

Could not start the Microsoft Exchange System Attendant service on Local Computer.
Error 1053: The service did not respond to the start or control request in a timely fashion.

At this time, you have to manually start the service to logon and view your e-mails. Because System Attendant service has not got enough rights necessary to access Exchange configuration objects in Active Directory, you have to wait for replication to finish.

Solution to Error- 1053

After starting, System Attendant service searches for Exchange Enterprise Servers, Exchange Services and Exchange Domain Servers groups in the default User containers. If the groups are not present there, System Attendant believes that they don’t exist at all. And hence, the service does not start. To solve the error, follow the underlying steps.

1.    Move the Exchange Enterprise Servers, Exchange Services and Exchange Domain Servers groups to their default Users container. This will cause the System Attendant to find them at startup.
2.    Restart System Attendant service.

Error 1053 is displayed because the Exchange Server is designed in that way. System Attendant cannot start if the default User container is empty. So, moving the required groups to the container is the only option to solve the error. To get rid from such error or database damage you can purchase "Stellar Phoenix Mailbox Exchange Repair" tool. This Exchange EDB recovery tool is an error free and secure tool.