IIS Config Errors and EventID 4275 Exchange 2003 Cluster
25 01 2008For weeks my lab Exchange 2003 cluster was down. The cluster was configured in a active passive configuration and only one server has been up for months; the second virtual guest node was shutdown. At some point I was not able to reach the Exchange 2003 mailboxes and I start to review the Eventviewer and Services on the active online node. System log contained around 100 4275 event id errors in the IIS Config catalog category. I manually tried to start IIS Admin service and even reboot the server but still without success to get the service up and running. Metadatabase was not changed in anyway.
Error parsing XML file. Reason: An invalid character was found in the content. Incorrect XML.
I went to C:\WINDOWS\system32\inetsrv and renanmed Metabase.xml file to Metabase.xml1. This is the file IIS uses for its configuration database.
I reviewed to eventlog to find out when this Eventid 4275 started. The first error was on 12 December.
The C:\WINDOWS\system32\inetsrv\History folder contains all previous XML Metadatabase history files.
I copied the one just before the error event and paste the file to C:\WINDOWS\system32\inetsrv. Rename the file to MetaDatabase.xml
Go back to Services MMC console and start IIS Admin and WWW service. Both started successfully. Start Cluster Administrator and bring to Exchange group online.
After weeks the Exchange 2003 cluster started to function successfully. Second note was updated and virtual machines were backuped.
Why did this happened? The only reason I was able to find is during the first day of the errors, there were couple of power outages and the IIS Metadatabase.xml file did became corrupt.
Ivan - thanks. This solved my problem on a SBS 2003 server that also (probably) suffered from a power outage.
Also solved my problem with a SBS2003 server. Exact same symptoms with the 4275 errors in the event log, but mine started with a bad sector on a hard drive. Thanks for the info!
I have to thank you for posting this. We had some corruption on a SBS2003 box and thought we were in for a long day. Most other posts i have found over the net were saying you need to uninstall and reinstall IIS to repair the metabase.
Thanks again!!
We had this same problem after an abrupt power failure. My co-worker and I have been trying to figure out this problem for almost a week. We thought we may have to re-install IIS and
Exchange. We didn’t think it would be this easy to fix.
Thank you very much for the post.
Thx a Lot.
This really work for my. And help me save a lot of time.
Yesterday we have a problems with a log of Exchange 2007. Today with this one. Sound like something is wrong with server.
Thanks again!!!
Thanks sooo much!!! I had applied Windows SBS updates and after the reboot I got this error! Followed your instructions and got IIS up and running within 15 minutes!
Thank you very much to save my troubleshooting time.
Great Work.