Cannot Access Mailbox in Exchange Server 2010/13/16

Hello readers, today in this article I am going to describe an Exchange error ‘Cannot Access Mailbox in Exchange Server 2010, 2013, and 2016’. As you might know that there could be several reasons for this issue. It could be the cause of Exchange Database corruption, or Exchange Database is the disconnected situation.

Cannot Access Mailbox in Exchange Server 2010/13/16
There are many similar types of questions about which I am going to describe in this article. Those queries are mentioned following:

  • Unable to Access Exchange Mailbox Using OWA or ActiveSync When Database is Removed
  • Cannot Access Mailbox after Reconnecting the Exchange Database For Several Hours

Users are unable to access the mailbox either by using OWA & ActiveSync in those conditions when Exchange database is completely disconnected, or database is removed from the Exchange server. In these situations user get “The Website Cannot Display the page HTTP 500” error.

Cause of Cannot Access Mailbox Issue

  1. The Cause could be that the GUID of user mailbox would be containing the client-side cache and trying to connect with the server database, but the server DB GUID cache has been updated. Which is leading to the disconnection of Exchange Database and cause of this problem users are unable to access Exchange mailbox using OWA (Outlook Web Access) and Exchange ActiveSync. In this case, Exchange throws DatabaseGUIDNotFound Error.
  2. The another cause could be, when Directory Service Access (DSAccess) tries to search the disconnected mailbox in Active Directory, then it returns ‘Cannot access the database’ error.
  3. Exchange Database EDB file corruption can also lead to ‘can not access mailbox’ error.

Resolution to Cannot Access Mailbox Issue in Exchange Server

  1. The resolution of the first cause is targeting to Exchange Server 2013. You just need to install Cumulative update 6 in Exchange 2013. You can download that update by clicking here.
  2. The resolution of second cause is targeting to Exchange server 2010. To get over from this issue you have to install update rollup 3 in Exchange 2010 service pack 2. For downloading the update click here.
  3. For resolving the Exchange EDB file corruption issue you have to go with fixing the Exchange database with the help of CMDLET Commands.

Way to Keep Exchange Away From These Issues

  1. Don’t directly remove the database from Exchange Server.
  2. Delete all cookies of client and then restart MSExchangeOWAAppPool as well as MSExchangeSyncAppPool.
  3. Run Clean-MailboxDatabase command for scanning Active Directory for all disconnected mailboxes and updates.
  4. After reconnecting the Exchange database wait for several hours before accessing, till the time of Active directory rollout check for all changed or updated items.

That’s all, what I can discuss about “Cannot Access Mailbox in Exchange Server 2010/13/16” error in this article.

Conclusion: Cannot Access Mailbox Error

In this post, we discussed the error ‘Unable to access mailbox in Exchange server 2010/13/16’. We also discussed the resolution as well as prerequisite activities for fixing as well as keeping the Exchange server away from ‘Cannot access mailbox’ or ‘Unable to access Exchange mailbox’ error.