‘No such host is known’ warning while transferring the messages using Narawen Inox POP3 Connector

Symptoms
Messages are not transferred. Following warning is reported into Event Log:

Report for message xxx of xxx from xxxx.

Delivery report:
Status: Not completed
xxx@xxx:
Not delivered. No such host is known.

Cause
Narawen Inox POP3 Connector used reverse DNS lookup to retrieve mail host name. In some network configurations this query fails with error message ‘No such host is known’.

Solution
Upgrade to the latest release of Narawen Inox POP3 Connector.

Applies to
Narawen Inox POP3 Connector 5.2 SR1 (2008-02-05)
Narawen Inox POP3 Connector 5.2 (2007-11-14)
Narawen Inox POP3 Connector 5.1 SR1 (2006-09-25)
Narawen Inox POP3 Connector 5.1 (2006-06-14)
Narawen Inox POP3 Connector 5.0 (2005-11-10)

SMTP authentication error while dynamic addressing is in use

Symptoms
SMTP server reports authentication error despite correct credentials configured. It happens when dynamic addressing is in use.

Cause
There was a problem with Narawen Inox POP3 Connector. It was not sending authentication details to SMTP server when dynamic addressing was in use.

Solution
Upgrade to latest release of Narawen Inox POP3 Connector.

Applies to
Narawen Inox POP3 Connector 5.2 SR1 (2008-02-05)
Narawen Inox POP3 Connector 5.2 (2007-11-14)
Narawen Inox POP3 Connector 5.1 SR1 (2006-09-25)
Narawen Inox POP3 Connector 5.1 (2006-06-14)
Narawen Inox POP3 Connector 5.0 (2005-11-10)

Dynamic addressing does not recogize some mail headers

Symptoms
Messages are not delivered by Narawen Inox POP3 Connector when dynamic addressing is in use.

Cause
Narawen Inox POP3 Connector was case-sensitive while recognizing message headers which could cause them to be ignored.

Solution
Upgrade to latest release of Narawen Inox POP3 Connector.

Applies to
Narawen Inox POP3 Connector 5.2 SR1 (2008-02-05)
Narawen Inox POP3 Connector 5.2 (2007-11-14)
Narawen Inox POP3 Connector 5.1 SR1 (2006-09-25)
Narawen Inox POP3 Connector 5.1 (2006-06-14)
Narawen Inox POP3 Connector 5.0 (2005-11-10)

Support for BCC addresses in Narawen Inox POP3 Connector

What is BCC address
When the sender of the e-mail message decides to hide recipients from being aware of each other he can use BCC (Blind Carbon Copy) address field while editing the message.

The e-mail addresses put in BCC field are not stored inside message header set like regular “To:” or “CC:” fields.

This can cause the situation that POP3 mailbox will contain message without any recipient addresses specified. It means that the recipient was on BCC list.

Static addressing is not affected
There is no issue with static addressing offered by Narawen Inox POP3 Connector. It just grabs all the contents of mailbox and sends to target address regardless if the messages have any addressing information or not.

How to fix dynamic addressing for BCC addresses
For dynamic addressing Narawen Inox POP3 Connector must have valid recipient address available in order to route the mail properly.
Starting from version 5.2 SR2 this is supported by handling “x-rcpt-to” header added by some mail servers with hint what was the recipient e-mail address.

We recommend the upgrade to latest release to avoid problems with dynamic addressing caused by BCC field.

Applies to:

Narawen Inox POP3 Connector 5.2 SR1 (2008-02-05)
Narawen Inox POP3 Connector 5.2 (2007-11-14)
Narawen Inox POP3 Connector 5.1 SR1 (2006-09-25)
Narawen Inox POP3 Connector 5.1 (2006-06-14)
Narawen Inox POP3 Connector 5.0 (2005-11-10)

How to backup Narawen Inox POP3 Connector settings

To back up the configuration of Narawen Inox POP3 Connector use Registry Editor. All settings are stored at following registry key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Virtual Moon\Inox

Just export it to REG file and import in case of need.

Exchange Server rejects huge e-mail messages

Symptoms:

Messages bigger than 10 MB are not transferred by Narawen Inox POP3 Connector. They are downloaded from POP3 mailbox and retried to be sent without effect.

Additionally in Application event log InoxSvc records following message:

Report for message 1 of 1 from xxx@xxx

Delivery report:
Status: Not completed
xxx@xxx:
Not delivered. Connection to smtp://exchange-server:25 reported protocol error. 552 5.3.4 Message size exceeds fixed maximum message size.

Message details:

The hint is “fixed maximum message size”. Usually the limit is set in recipient policy. In that case increasing limit at recipient policy will not help. To adjust “fixed maximum message size” proceed with following steps:

1. Exchange Server Management Console
2. Organization Configuration
3. Hub Transport
4. Locate the appropriate Receive Connector
5. Adjust the value of the Maximum Message Size (KB)

SQL Server stored ASP.NET Session variables are lost when switching web servers

Environment:

Cluster of multiple web servers (Microsoft IIS) connected through load balancer sharing ASP.NET session variables by using SQLServer mode of <sessionState> configuration.

Symptoms:

Session variables are randomly lost and recovered when switching between web servers. Depending on which web server handles the request session variables are different. Some web servers seems to share same set of variables. Others have different set of variables.

Reason:

All web site identifiers must be equal at all of web servers. They act as application identifier and each application have separate pool of session variables.

In my case five of six web servers had equal web site identifiers. The sixth server had different web site identifier. All requests redirected to it seen different session variables than accessible at other web servers.

To check web site identifier

1. Open Start / Administrative Tools / Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager
2. Navigate to (server name) / Web Sites
3. Switch right pane of console to Details view.
4. You will see columns: Description, Identifier, State, Host header value, IP address, Port, SSL Port, Status
5. Read web site identifier from column “Identifier”
6. Verify if all web servers have equal web site identifier.

To change web site identifier

1. Stop the web site (right click at IIS manager and select Stop, there is no need to stop entire IIS).
2. Open command line console and change current directory to “C:\Inetpub\AdminScripts”.
3. Run following command:
   cscript adsutil.vbs move w3svc/currentid w3svc/newid
4. where “currentid” is current web site identifier and “newid” is new web site identifier.
5. Start the web site.

Files in PureCM workspace have invalid encoding

I’ve created a PureCM workspace for web site project. After starting up the site it turns out that all Polish characters are invalid. The site is made in UTF-8 and all files contains texts encoded this way.

The browser could not identify what kind of encoding is used. I’ve tried with ISO-8859-2 which is another possible standard for Polish characters.

No effects.

I’ve checked the file types reported by PureCM. For most of C# code files it was “text/plain” which we configured in repository with following options:

• File Type: text
• Selected “Disable writing of unicode identifier”
• Encoding: System Encoding

What does “System Encoding” mean for PureCM?

It turns out that it is a setting for “non-Unicode programs” which can be found in system’s Control Panel / Regional and Language Options / Advanced.

I’ve created the workspace at new PureCM installation at computer running English Windows version and thas setting was “English” by default.

To solve the problem I did following steps:

1. Opened Control Panel
2. Opened Regional and Language Options
3. Clicked to Advanced tab
4. Selected “Polish” as Language for non-Unicode programs.
5. Rebooted the computer.
6. Deleted the PureCM workspace.
7. Created PureCM workspace.

IIS does not want to start after change of IP

The IIS 6.0 installed at Windows 2003 Small Business Server refused to start. All web sites reported following error:

The format of the specified network name is invalid

Additionally in System event log following errors were logged:

EventID 1004 from W3SVC: Cannot register the URL prefix …. for site …. The site has been deactivated.

and

Event ID 1005 from HTTP: Unable to bind to the underlying transport for …. The IP Listen-Only list may contain a reference to an interface which may not exist on this machine.

I checked if IIS websites were configured to listen on old IP address only… but no… they were set to “All unassigned”.

Also I checked if nothing blocks ports 80 and 443 when IIS is stopped….

After some research I found this Microsoft TechNet page: Configuring the IP Inclusion List (IIS 6.0) which mentiones both events and refers to “httpcfg” utility which is used for configuration of HTTP protocol bindings.

Unfortunatelly I was working at remote desktop without access to installation CD to install Windows Support Tools containing “httpcfg”. But the solution was quite simple…

What I did to fix:

1. Opened the Registry Editor
2. Navigated to “HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\HTTP\Parameters”
3. At “ListenOnlyList” registry value there was a reference to old IP address.
4. Changed the old IP address to new one in “ListenOnlyList” value.
5. Restarted HTTP service (“net stop http / net start http”)
6. Restarted IIS service (“net stop w3svc / net start w3svc”)

And it works now…

How to fix Windows Vista Explorer to allow selecting multiple files

I have recently run into problem that my Vista Business did not allow to select multiple files located in particular folder when using Windows Explorer.

It was not possible to select more than single file by keyboard shortcuts nor with using Ctrl + mouseclick or Shift + mouseclick.

To fix it I needed to delete registry key located in:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\Local Settings\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Shell\Bags

This key contains mutliple subkeys where indivdual settings for each folder are saved. Because I could not identify this particular folder settings so just deleted all of them that they returned to factory settings.

Later I found in Microsoft Knowledge Base solution which does not require manual editing of registry: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/934548/en-us.