EMP MAPI Logon Failure

Exchange Management Pack synthetic transactions can generate a lot of noise in the Operations Manager console because there are numerous components that can contribute to the problem (i.e, Exchange, Active Directory, IIS, etc.).  Once it has been verified that the problem is an Operations Manager Agent issue rather than an actual user-impacting issue, the alerts are usually disregarded until someone has a chance to dig in and do some troubleshooting.  Today is one of those days for me.

We have been receiving the following alert from a client Exchange server for a number of days and it was initially diagnosed as an agent issue:

MAPI Logon Failure
MAPI logon verification: Problem in accessing Directory
Service caused Logon failure Exchange Server: “SERVERNAME“
MDB:”First Storage Group\Mailbox Store (SERVERNAME)”
Mailbox:”SERVERNAMEMOM” Error: The information store could not
be opened. [MAPI 1.0 - [MAPI_E_LOGON_FAILED
(80040111)]]

I checked the usual settings – mailbox rights, mailbox security, mailbox access account credentials, etc. – and everything was configured properly.  However, one thing caught my eye while checking the properties of the test mailbox user account.  On the Exchange Advanced tab of the Properties dialog box (below), the Hide from Exchange address lists option was selected.

Exchange Advanced tab

This did not seem quite right to me, so I checked test mailbox account properties in a couple of other client domains.  This option was deselected on every account that I checked.  Apparently, at some point, someone had selected this option so the account, which is disabled by default when created by the Exchange Management Pack Configuration Wizard, would not appear in the Outlook Global Address List. I promptly deselected the option and monitored the Operations Manager event log on the server.  Within minutes Event ID 19980 was logged indicating that all attempted MAPI logins of test mailboxes on the server had succeeded.

As is so often the case, an overlooked checkbox or radio button was the root of the problem and an alert that had repeated hundreds of times was finally closed.  During my troubleshooting, I did not come across anything that referenced the Hide from Exchange address lists option, although it surely exists somewhere in cyberspace, so I hope this post is beneficial to others trying to resolve a similar issue.