Emails Stuck in Drafts - On Premises Exchange Server

Here I troubleshoot a problem where all sent emails are sitting in the 'Drafts' folder of the users machines. They have a comment attached to them that says "Something went wrong and we haven't been able to send your message yet".
The fix is a relatively easy one so watch the video and find out exactly what I do to troubleshoot it, apply a fix and watch the email start flowing again.
Thank you for watching these videos, please subscribe to the channel with this link.
kzbin.info...
Have a good day.
Mark - The Cloud Geezer

[@charlescostarella]

This has helped many of my students. Our setup is a bit different in that they are typically running 2 DCs with both running DNS but this fixes the common issue.

[@thecloudgeezer]

Thanks Charles, I appreciate the feedback. Have a great weekend.

[@perfect.stealth]

I did not even make it through the video until my problem was solved. I wasn't aware of the Test-Mailflow command, so i paused the video and tried it. Surprisingly it said Success and immediately all my mails was sent lol. I don't know if this command flushes the queue or something, but it worked never the less :D Thanks alot!

[@thecloudgeezer]

Excellent. Glad it all worked out for you. Normally this issue is caused by DNS problems, but if the test-mailflow kicked it into life then awesome. Thanks for taking the time to comment. Mark.

[@klaus9465]

same here! no idea why ...

[@vibhubhatnagar6331]

thanks for the Video it helped me as well

[@Tirubix]

Hi, your video helps me so much, but I have a somewhat similar question. I’m a student, so Windows Server and DNS are still quite new to me. In a situation where you have a domain controller (for example, 10.0.0.2) which is also the DNS for the domain, and you have a pfSense router/firewall (10.0.0.254), what IP should you set for the DNS on the DC? Should it be its own IP, the router's IP, or can you configure both on the DC? Thanks in advance for your reply and for your helpful video!

[@thecloudgeezer]

Hi. The normal process is to set the DNS for the Exchange Server to just be the local AD server. Then on the AD server you would add any forward lookup DNS servers to allow the server to respond to any DNS requests that go beyond the local network. Hope that helps. Mark.

[@tomgeyer]

This was exactly my problem. Thanks!

[@thecloudgeezer]

Woohoo! I helped someone. Now the day is brighter. Thank you.

[@NBAUsaisyourfather]

Thank you.. Good knowledgable video.

[@thecloudgeezer]

Excellent. Thank you for the comment and I am glad you liked it. :-)

[@gerardogonzalez8668]

Thank you, this worked fine, I have a doubt, this is for computers inside the network, but what happend if we have users that are connected from external networks (only for email purposes), I have this scenario, so I can't move DNS on IPv4 Properties

[@thecloudgeezer]

Hi. The DNS change that is made is only for the Exchange Server itself, not at a client machine level. So once the DNS is fixed there then all clients will work great. The issue is that the server stops processing the outbound mail and won't accept it from the clients, which is why it stays in there drafts folder. It is definitely a server side configuration problem though. Happy to chat via email - [e-mail] - if you have any specific examples or things you want to share with me. Mark.

[@KcYukon]

What if you DNS is set properly to your DC and your still getting that issue ....

[@thecloudgeezer]

The problem is DNS on the exchange server so make sure that is the one that is set to point correctly. Hope that helps you. Mark.

[@KcYukon]

@@thecloudgeezer okay so I only have DNS installed on thr DC not the exchange server your saying it should also be installed on the exchange server as well??

[@blonderedhead4440]

thank you, it worked!

[@thecloudgeezer]

You are most welcome. Glad this helped you out.

[@stefanoriva4943]

Thanks !!!! Perfect !!!

[@thecloudgeezer]

You're welcome!

[@Wooldorf]

thanx a lot :)

[@thecloudgeezer]

You are most welcome!

[@hawkarit6834]

this is exactly my problem but does not fix if you want i will give access just fix to me i will use two servers one for DNS second server for Exchanger

[@thecloudgeezer]

Just make sure that ONLY the local DC is the DNS server that your Exchange Server is pointing too. Having a second entry pointing to a gateway or external DNS server is the cause of your problem.

[@hughwilliams4816]

This is not simple or helpful… maybe to you though ffs

[@thecloudgeezer]

Thanks Hugh. If it is not simple enough then let me know what you are struggling with and I can see what I can do to help you out on this. I assume that you have a problem with emails being stuck in draft and not sending, and that you have an On-premises Exchange server? Anyway, happy to help so please comment back with what your issue is. Have a good day Sir.