Microsoft KB Archive/246200

= SBS: Fax Server Is Unable to Properly Receive Faxes =

Article ID: 246200

Article Last Modified on 11/19/2003

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APPLIES TO


 * Microsoft BackOffice Small Business Server 4.0
 * Microsoft BackOffice Small Business Server 4.0a
 * Microsoft BackOffice Small Business Server 4.5

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This article was previously published under Q246200



SYMPTOMS
When you try to use a Small Business Server (SBS) Fax server to receive faxes, faxes may randomly be received in an incomplete state. Also, the following entry may be added to the application event log:

Source: NT Fax

Event ID: 8218

Description: An error was encountered while receiving a fax. Please wait a minute and have the sender try again. If difficulties persist, please check that the following items are working: Phone line, Sending Fax Device, and Receiving Fax Device. If problems persist, contact product support.



CAUSE
This problem can occur because the fax server utilizes a T30 protocol for transmitting and receiving faxes. The T30 protocol is extremely time sensitive, and has several hard coded time-out values. If the fax threads that operate the T30 protocol do not run within a certain time period, the incoming fax may not be received, and may generate a timeout error message. Microsoft Windows NT Server is not a real-time operating system. There is no way to guarantee that a thread will run within a specified time slice. The fax threads may be preempted by other threads running on the computer and cause a timeout failure on the received fax.



RESOLUTION
To try to work around this problem, increase the performance of the server by increasing the CPU speed or by off-loading some of the server services and functions to other computers or servers.



STATUS
Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem in BackOffice Small Business Server.

Additional query words: smallbiz sbs

Keywords: kberrmsg kbprb KB246200

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