After running compact from the server command line on three user’s mail databases, the Domino server will not route email to them.
Instead we are getting “Recipient’s Domino Directory entry does not specify a valid Notes mail file.”
We first experienced this after compacting one user’s db, but didn’t tie the two together. Now three weeks later we are getting the same symptoms after compacting two more user’s db’s, so I’m quite certain the compact is the cause of the problem.
In the first user’s case, we tried everything to fix, and ended up having to take the drastic step of creating a new mail database for him. I certainly don’t want to do that again for two more people if I don’t have to.
Subject: Email doesn’t route after manually compacting mail db
Philip, What style of compact do you use against these individuals? Try running a fixup and then a compact -c against this user and see if this resolves the issue.
This is not pretty, but what we did to get around it is to create a new mail database for each affected user then copied all docs from the old into the new.
Sounds extreme, but we tried everything to no avail.
Subject: RE: Email doesn’t route after manually compacting mail db
That isn’t exactly what happened for you, though. What happened was that you were seeing mail addressed to variations on the users’ names, but not the exact name. I worked with Brahim on that for a couple of hours about 3 weeks ago. I remember this matter very clearly.
In this case, it was just adding those aliases for those users to their Person documents.
For instance, prior to 6.5, mail addressed to “nathan_freeman@blah.com” would get delivered to me, even though my directory entry only included “nathan_t_freeman.” At this particular site, the gateway servers started being more strict about the address. So we just monitored the mail boxes for dead mail, and watched for that error. Then we fixed the person docs accordingly.
None of this had anything to do with Compacting. I don’t know what you’re seeing in your environment. Were I to speculate, I’d guess it had something to do with application of policies to email by the Compact process. But that’s just a guess.