Article ID: 159307
Article Last Modified on 10/28/2006
APPLIES TO
- Microsoft Exchange Server 4.0 Standard Edition
This article was previously published under Q159307
SYMPTOMS
The Microsoft Exchange message transfer agent (MTA) terminates unexpectedly with an event similar to the following (as viewed in the Application Event Log):
The following Application Event Log message may be seen as well:
CAUSE
When an MTA object is created, its reference count is initialized to one. When the object is passed to an entity that can delete the object, the reference count must first be incremented. When an object deletion is requested, the reference count is decremented (and when the reference count for the object reaches zero, the object is physically deleted).
There is a race condition in the MTA, where a newly initialized object (reference count of one) is passed to an entity (the Microsoft Exchange Internet Mail Connector) before the reference count is incremented. An object deletion is requested by the Internet Mail Connector (IMC) (which decrements the reference count to zero, and causes the object to be deleted). When the MTA attempts to access the object, the object had already been deleted and an "ODXOINIU - Object does not exist" complaint is raised by the MTA.
STATUS
The Microsoft MTA has been modified to ensure that the reference count for the object is incremented prior to being passed to an entity that could delete it.
Microsoft has confirmed this to be a problem in Microsoft Exchange version 4.0. This problem was corrected in the latest Microsoft Exchange 4.0 U.S. Service Pack. 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: failure crash deletion spurious ODXOINIU
Keywords: kbbug kbfix kbusage KB159307
