Reseeding a 'Failed and Suspended' Mailbox Database in Exchange 2010

Usually, there comes a state in Exchange server 2010 where Exchange server mailbox database status shows as 'Failed and Suspended'. It indicates that there is any possible issue in mailbox database which needs to be rectified by an Exchange admin. But, the replication service doesn’t sometimes check whether this error has been resolved or not, so as an administrator you need to figure out this issue using shell command before the mailbox database replica can be restored to again a healthy state.

So today I am sharing the easy solution to reseed a failed mailbox database copy in Exchange 2010. 

To initiate the fix, first run the Get-MailboxDatabaseCopyStatus powershell to determine the current status of copy of mailbox database. 

By running the command it will show you all the information (and status) about all replicas of mailbox database and all copies on server.

Run the command to check the status of all the mailboxes copy on a particular database-

Get-MailboxDatabaseCopyStatus -Identity <databaseName>

Once you’ve all the information about database copy, check the System log and Application log for event that may provide you more information about the origin source of the error. 

You can also check Operations Manager for additional info about the causes of the error.

If the database is in offline mode from a long time, you will need to reseed it. But before reseed the replication to the database, you need to suspend the copy of database using the following shell command-

Suspend-MailboxDatabaseCopy <databaseName>\<ReplicaServerName>

 

Now run the powershell to reseed this database copy-

Update-MailboxDatabaseCopy <databaseName>\<ReplicaServerName> -SourceServer <ActiveServerName> -DeleteExistingFiles:$True

The complete reseeding process may take longer time depends on the size of current database copy. Once it will complete the process, it will automatically resume replication for the database replica, or run the command to resume database copy-

Resume-MailboxDatabaseCopy <databaseName\<ReplicaServerName>

However, you can run the below command if you want to stop update from automatic resume-

Update-MailboxDatabaseCopy -Identity "Mailbox Database 01\EX2" -DeleteExistingFiles –ManualResume

That’s it. By following this guide you can reseed any failed mailbox database copy in Exchange Server 2010.