DOCUMENT:Q236426  16-MAY-2002  [exchange]
TITLE   :XADM: Information Store or Directory Service Appear Hung
PRODUCT :Microsoft Exchange
PROD/VER:winnt:5.5
OPER/SYS:
KEYWORDS:exc55

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The information in this article applies to:

 - Microsoft Exchange Server, version 5.5 
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SYMPTOMS
========

 - The information store service becomes unresponsive. Users are unable to log
   onto mailboxes, and Performance Monitor may show %Processor Utilization for
   Store.exe at 0 percent.

 - The directory service becomes unresponsive. Various operations, such as
   resolving a name to a mailbox in the global address list, or checking a name
   during creation of a mailbox profile stop responding (hang) when users
   attempt to perform them. In addition, Performance Monitor may show %Processor
   Utilization for Dsamain.exe at 0 percent.

CAUSE
=====

ESE (Jet) hangs because all threads are waiting to acquire a resource that is
owned by another thread. The decision used by threads as to which resources to
acquire is based in part on a timestamp, and the timestamp comparison is being
performed incorrectly. This incorrect comparison can cause the owning thread not
to release the lock on the resource and leave all threads waiting.

The symptoms noted above are usually dependent on system uptime. Although this
problem is not reproducible, documented cases encountered this problem on
Exchange Server computers running for 30 days or more.


RESOLUTION
==========

To resolve this problem, obtain the latest service pack for Exchange Server
version 5.5. For additional information, please see the following article in the
Microsoft Knowledge Base:

   Q191014 XGEN: How to Obtain the Latest Exchange Server 5.5 Service Pack

The English version of this feature should have the following file attributes or
later:

Component: ESE

+----------------------+
| File name | Version  | 
+----------------------+
| Ese.dll   | 5.5.2608 | 
+----------------------+


This hotfix has been posted to the following Internet location as Psp2esei.exe:

   ftp://ftp.microsoft.com/bussys/exchange/exchange-public/fixes/Eng/Exchg5.5/PostSP2/ESE-fix/Psp2esei.zip


STATUS
======

Microsoft has confirmed this to be a problem in Microsoft Exchange Server
version 5.5. This problem was first corrected in Microsoft Exchange Server
version 5.5 Service Pack 3.

Additional query words: freeze frozen hanging ESE98 ESE97 100% spike

======================================================================
Keywords          : exc55 
Technology        : kbExchangeSearch kbExchange550 kbZNotKeyword2
Version           : winnt:5.5
Issue type        : kbbug
Solution Type     : kbfix

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