The MTA quits unexpectedly on your Exchange Server 5.5 computer

You may experience the following symptoms on your Microsoft Exchange Server 5.5 computer:

• The message transfer agent (MTA) quits unexpectedly.
• You receive the following Dr. Watson error message:
  An application error has occurred and an application error log is being generated.
  emsmta.exe
  Exception: access violation (0xc0000005), Address: 0x 005699c1
• The following event messages may be logged in the Application log:

  Event ID 4097
  Source: Dr. Watson
  Description:
  The application, exe\emsmta.dbg, generated an application error. The error occurred on date @ time. The exception generated was c00000005 at address 005699c1 (oeprbind)

  Event ID 2219
  Source: MSExchangeMTA
  Category: Field Engineering
  Description:
  The MTA is running recovery on the internal message database because the MTA was not shut down cleanly. This operation may take some time. Status updates will be written to the Windows NT Event Log. [DB Server MAIN BASE %1 %2] (14)
  

  Event ID 2206
  Source: MSExchangeMTA
  Category: Field Engineering
  Description:
  The MTA database recovery operation is now checking queue: Queue_name, the file name of this queue is: File_path. [DB Server MAIN BASE %1 %2] (14)
  

  Event ID 2207:
  Source: MSExchangeMTA
  Category: Field Engineering
  Description:
  The MTA database recovery operation has completed successfully. Recovery details can be found in the file: File_path. [DB Server MAIN BASE %1 %2] (14)

When you try to restart the MTA, it starts successfully.

Hotfix information

A supported hotfix is now available from Microsoft, but it is only intended to correct the problem that this article describes. Apply it only to systems that are experiencing this specific problem.

Note You must have a Visual Studio license agreement to obtain this hotfix.

To resolve this problem, contact Microsoft Product Support Services to obtain the hotfix. For a complete list of Microsoft Product Support Services telephone numbers and information about support costs, visit the following Microsoft Web site:Note In special cases, charges that are ordinarily incurred for support calls may be canceled if a Microsoft Support Professional determines that a specific update will resolve your problem. The usual support costs will apply to additional support questions and issues that do not qualify for the specific update in question.

Prerequisites

Because of file dependencies, this hotfix requires Microsoft Exchange Server 5.5 Service Pack 4.

Restart requirement

Installing or removing this hotfix may cause reboots because the Microsoft Systems Management Server (SMS) installer will not be changed to take any fixes. Depending on your configuration, you may have to restart the computer after you install this hotfix. The Microsoft Exchange System Attendant service and all the dependent services are automatically restarted when you install the hotfix.

Hotfix replacement information

This hotfix does not replace any other hotfixes.

File information

The English version of this hotfix has the file attributes (or later file attributes) that are listed in the following table. The dates and times for these files are listed in Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). When you view the file information, it is converted to local time. To find the difference between UTC and local time, use the Time Zone tab in the Date and Time tool in Control Panel.

Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem in the Microsoft products that are listed in the "Applies to" section.

For more information, click the following article numbers to view the articles in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: