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Q176126: XCON: No NDR When You Send Message to Invalid OR Address

Article: Q176126
Product(s): Microsoft Exchange
Version(s): WINDOWS:5.0
Operating System(s): 
Keyword(s): 
Last Modified: 14-MAR-1999

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The information in this article applies to:

- Microsoft Exchange Server, version 5.0 
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SYMPTOMS
========

When the recipient of a message is an invalid originator/recipient (O/R)
address, a non-delivery report (NDR) is generated as expected, but the NDR is
never delivered to the originator of the message.

CAUSE
=====

When a message is sent to a manually entered X.400 O/R address (referred to as
an one-off routing address) that is invalid, the store uses Address.dll to
normalize the O/R address. The normalizing process consists of ordering the
attributes in the O/R address, which is in the form of a string. This ordering
is important so that the address can be resolved to a DN (just as for an X.400
proxy). The message is submitted to the message transfer agent (MTA). During
message submission to the MTA, the store checks the syntax but not the
"routability" of the message.

As expected, this message causes the remote MTA to generate an NDR. As this NDR
reaches the sender's store, the same code path is taken for entry ID generation
for the actual recipient name. The store now proceeds to parse the NDR and
encounters the attributes that refer to the actual recipient of the original
message. It fails to parse these and proceeds to drop the NDR.

STATUS
======

Microsoft has confirmed this to be a problem in Microsoft Exchange Server
version 5.0. This problem has been corrected in the latest U.S. Service Pack for
Microsoft Exchange Server version 5.0. 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


MORE INFORMATION
================

With the fix in place, the parsing code skips the check on length and syntax of
the O/R address in the NDR.

Additional query words: OR

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Keywords          :  
Technology        : kbExchangeSearch kbExchange500 kbZNotKeyword2
Version           : WINDOWS:5.0
Issue type        : kbbug
Solution Type     : kbfix

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