DOCUMENT:Q152896  28-MAR-1999  [exchange]
TITLE   :XADM: MTA Startup Slow When Database is Large
PRODUCT :Microsoft Exchange
PROD/VER:winnt:4.0
OPER/SYS:
KEYWORDS:kbusage

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The information in this article applies to:

 - Microsoft Exchange Server, version 4.0 
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SYMPTOMS
========

After an abnormal shutdown, the Microsoft Exchange Message Transfer Agent (MTA)
service may take an extremely long time to start. On large databases, this could
mean several hours.

MORE INFORMATION
================

Microsoft Exchange does several file checksums to each individual Db*.dat file
located in the \Exchsrvr\mtadata directory each time the MTA starts after an
abnormal shutdown has occurred. This is done to maintain file integrity to
prevent further MTA failures. Microsoft Exchange may scan each file several
times and, in some cases, this can be thousands of files with gigabytes of
information.

Microsoft has determined that some of the file integrity checks performed by the
MTA are too CPU intensive and redundant and offer no cost effective gain to
maintaining database integrity over other, faster, methods.


STATUS
======

Microsoft has confirmed this to be a problem in Microsoft Exchange Server
version 4.0. This problem was corrected in Microsoft Exchange Server 4.0 U.S.
Service Pack 2. For information on obtaining the service pack, query on the
following word in the Microsoft Knowledge Base (without the spaces):

   S E R V P A C K

Additional query words: shutdown startup msexchangemta slow hang crash

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Keywords          : kbusage 
Technology        : kbExchangeSearch kbExchange400 kbZNotKeyword2
Version           : winnt:4.0

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