Q195847: XFOR: Chat Server Fails to Correctly Interpret an Extension

Article: Q195847
Product(s): Microsoft Exchange
Version(s): winnt:2.0,5.5
Operating System(s): 
Keyword(s): 
Last Modified: 17-DEC-1999

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The information in this article applies to:

- Microsoft Exchange Server, version 5.5 
- Microsoft Commercial Internet System version 2.0 
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SUMMARY
=======


According to the Chat Server Specification for Server Extension, if a Server
Extension fails during the initialization process, it should return a non-zero
result. This result indicates that the extension initialization has failed and
the Chat server should ignore the remaining instructions of the extension.

However, the Chat server is not ignoring the remaining instructions of the
extension. The Chat server continues to process the extension and eventually
fails when the initialization process is not in place, that is, a log file is
create for channel transcription.

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

There is no detrimental problems resulting from the fact that the Chat server is
not ignoring the remaining instructions of the extension; this however, spends
resources in the server extension process that will not complete.

Be sure to fully test your server extension before implementing it into a
production environment.

WORKAROUND
==========

The extension writer could possibly maintain a global variable that would be set
to what is returned from Init. Then, in each callback function, the code could
be wrapped with an if statement taking the Init return value into account.

For example, assume that "gInitReturnValue" is the global variable. In the Init
function, set gInitReturnValue equal to the value returned from the Init
function. Then do this in each callback function:

NOTE: This example is provided as sample code.. it is not written in any language
in particular.

  Function OnNewUser(...)
      If 0 = gInitReturnValue Then
          Do the OnNewUser code in here
      Else
          Init must have failed, so don't do this code and just return zero
  to tell the server that everything worked fine in this function
      End If
  End Function

Additional query words: mcischat;xfor

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Keywords          :  
Technology        : kbAudDeveloper kbExchangeSearch kbExchange550 kbZNotKeyword2 kbMCISSearch kbMCIS200
Version           : winnt:2.0,5.5
Issue type        : kbbug

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