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Move emails from .pst file to Smartermail
Question asked by T Lewis - 2/20/2015 at 10:47 AM
Unanswered
Hello,
 
I have question about an issue we are having and hoping anyone else that might have had this issue could explain why it happened and how they resolved it.
 
We have:
  • SmarterMail Enterprise Edition
  • Version 13.2.5507
  • Running on Windows Server 2008 R2 x64 16GB RAM 1TB Free Drive Space with SP1 Smartermail using IIS
 
We have migrated one of our clients of 22 user accounts they had .pst files from Exchange 2010 that were made with Outlook 2010 with SP2.
 
We created the user accounts in Smartermail and created an IMAP Outlook 2013 profile, mounted the .pst and moved email from the .pst to Smartermail correct folder, like Inbox to Inbox and etc.
 
When it came to users that had sub-folders we would log into the Smartermail webmail and create the sub-folders and go back and open Outlook and expand to the sub-folder and then move the email from the .pst file to the sub-folder (Smartermail), Outlook does it thing with syncing/updating folder once it was done you would not see the email in the Smartermail Outlook IMAP, but if we login to the Smartermail webmail we could see the emails in the sub-folders.  We would then enable ActiveSync on the account and delete the Outlook IMAP profile and create a Outlook ActiveSync profile, Outlook would connect right up, but the emails in the sub-folders do not show, so we went back to the Smartermail webmail and the emails that were showing are now not showing in the webmail interface as well.
 
This is a breakdown of things:
 
1.All 22 users are using Outlook 2013
2. Out of the 22 users 4 users had sub-folders.
3. The 4 users that had sub-folders are also the only users that have ActiveSync enabled and are connecting using ActiveSync.
4. 3 of the users are having this issue
5. All users were moved exactly the same way
 
Any help would be greatly appreciated.

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T Lewis Replied
Also tried: Stop the SmarterMail Service. In Windows Explorer, navigate to a folder missing mail (ex: C:\SmarterMail\Domains\[DOMAIN]\Users\[USER]\Mail\Inbox\[FOLDERNAME] Delete the mailbox.cfg file located in this folder. Restart the SmarterMail service. It was a fruitless effort no emails.
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T Lewis Replied
We solved the issue by moving this client to one of our Microsoft Exchange servers, the migration went as it should, no missing emails. We have no faith in Smartermail as an reliable email server or support of the product. Telling one client we have no idea where you email went is one too many clients to say that too.
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Steve Reid Replied
You would need to open a ticket for this type of issue, did you at least do that so support could actually help you?
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CCWH Replied
I'm thinking that's a little harsh when there's a tried and tested escalation point....a support ticket (one comes free with your licence)... Try that with Microsoft without having an EA.
 
Now that's out of the way, I'm trying to understand why all the steps, some seem unnecessary. We had a similar migration with a few more mailboxes. Some were ActiveSync. We created the mailbox within SM, enabled ActiveSync, used the Migration Tool to transfer any emails from their old mailbox, the user opened Outlook 2013 and created a new profile (entered their email / password, chose Exchange ActiveSync, profile created) then... Went and made a coffee whilst the mail synchronised. We've done this quite a few times now without an issue with SM.
 
Yes, the client is re-downloading the mail...but far better and automated.
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T Lewis Replied
Yes! we did open a support ticket with Smartertools. Fruitless effort to get past the general must have been a migration issue, New clients are only going to wait a day or so before they become very worried about moving to a new hosting company and the right out of the gate missing emails. Now for the migration, yes if the had an Exchange server to start with that would have been a different story, but this was a company that split and only had the .pst files for each of the users. No email server to migrate from. This was also one of the sticking points with Smartertools they had a hard time understanding that sometimes customers are coming with only their email in various email formats from a .pst file to Novell Groupwise. What I am saying is not all customers are going to be coming to you with access to their old email server. That is why there was so many steps to the migration, and no reason why the email displayed in the smartermail web interface until we attached to the account with an ActiveSync Outlook profile, after that missing emails. Customer was not happy and quite worried that we lost their emails, But we also make a backup before we do anything, so we were fine there, After about a week the customer was not happy and neither were we that we were no closer to an answer of what happened. We moved them to one of our Microsoft Exchange server, We ate the additional cost per mailbox, but were able to save the relationship. We are not trying to compare the support to Microsoft, because their is a big difference in price and size of the companies that allows Microsoft to have more resources. but since you brought it up, when we have an issue with Exchange that requires us to get Microsoft involved, they stay with the issue until resolved, some have been all nighters for sure, but in the end they provided they support needed to get the issue resolved. Have to say it was not even close, I have had better support from the community then with Smartertools support. In the end we would have been happy with re-doing the migration if their was an explanation of the what happened and how to avoid in the future. Missing customers email without knowing what the system did with it is not a smart business move to continue to use and hope that it does not happen again. Needed some answers that is all. I do appreciate the feedback and trying to help.

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