XADM: Error 1120 and 5000 Occurs When Starting Information Store

The Information Store service in Microsoft Exchange Server may not start and the Server Specific Error 4294966746 occurs. Events 1120 and 5000 are recorded in the Event Log with MSExchangeIS as the source.

This behavior can occur when the Information Store stops abnormally and the Eseutil.exe hard repair option (/P) is run against the Priv.edb file to return it to a state in which it can be started. In addition, the previous transaction log files were deleted, as recommended in the Eseutil dialog box, but hard repair was not run against the Pub.edb file.

At this point, the Priv.edb file is returned to a consistent state through the repair process, but the Pub.edb file is not. A consistent database does not require the presence of previous transaction log files to start, but an inconsistent one does.

Use either of the following solutions to resolve this behavior.

Remove Pub.edb

Remove the Pub.edb file. This removes all public folder data on the server.

IMPORTANT: If you choose to remove the Pub.edb file, rather than repair it, do not remove the Edb.log file that was just created during the previous startup attempt.

That failure marks the Priv.edb file as inconsistent and Priv.edb requires the presence of its log file so that it can start successfully.

If the Edb.log file is removed, the only way to return the Priv.edb file to a consistent state is to run the "eseutil /p" command again.

Run Eseutil /p

Run the "eseutil /p" command (without the quotation marks) against the Pub.edb file.

The symptoms described in this article also occur if Pub.edb is repaired, but Priv.edb is not.

IMPORTANT: Note that using the Eseutil's hard repair functionality is a last resort option. Using that option may result in data loss if there is no current backup or if circular logging is enabled, thus preventing restoration of Exchange data to the time of failure. First try a soft recovery by using the eseutil /r command. If this does not work, try the eseutil /p command for a hard repair; this may be the best current alternative.

In the application event log, a series of events similar to the following accompany this behavior: A Microsoft Exchange Server database is considered consistent only after it has been shut down normally. At all other times, including during normal operation, there is a flag in the database marking it as inconsistent. Thus if the database service is terminated abnormally, Exchange Server knows on the next startup that something went wrong in the previous session. Exchange then initiates "soft recovery" steps to back out or commit necessary transactions to the database and restore its integrity.

You can check a database for consistency with the following command: The State line in the screen output from this command may contain Consistent or Inconsistent.

NOTE: Exchange 2000 Service Pack 2 and later, do not report the database state as "Consistent" or "Inconsistent" but as "Clean Shutdown" or "Dirty Shutdown." The meaning of "Clean Shutdown" is the same as "Consistent", and the meaning of "Dirty Shutdown" is the same as "Inconsistent".