Innovative Technology Weblog

I ran into a problem today (Feb 29th 2008) while installing a second Exchange 2007 server. The issue first became evident when noticed that I couldn’t move mailboxes from one MBX server to another. The error message I was getting everytime was “The Exchange server address list service is not running on SERVERX”…etc. I tried to find more info on the web and noticed that more people all around the world were experiencing similar issues, always with the Address List Service not running as the root problem. Me (and many others) were thinking that this could have something to do with the Exchange Rollup 1 patch for Exchange 2007 SP1, but even after removing it from all my Exchange servers the issue remained. Now finally, the root cause has been found: Exchange chokes on todays date!

It turns out an actual leap year bug has found its way into the Exchange 2007 product, causing problems all around the world. Changing the date has been confirmed both by Microsoft PSS and from people in the field to fix the problem. For everyone who can’t or won’t temporarily change the date of their entire system, you will have to wait until after midnight before you get everything back to normal (I sure don’t blame you, I have to wait as well). I do recommend rebooting your Exchange servers after midnight because I don’t think the Address List Service will come back online on its own.

A leap year bug….sheesh!

Read more about it here: http://forums.microsoft.com/TechNet/ShowPost.aspx?PageIndex=1&SiteID=17&PageID=1&PostID=2928121