Unable to send emails to lists and document libraries in SharePoint 2010

This post describes an issue with incoming e-mail to lists and document libraries after installing the April 2012 CU for SharePoint 2010.

Those of you who have installed the April 2012 CU for SharePoint Server 2010 on the farm and configured incoming emails on document libraries or lists would have encountered this issue, User sends an e-mail to a list or document library. However, the email is never delivered to the list/document library.

Here are some more details:

The e-mails are received by the SMTP Drop folder (C:\inetpub\mailroot\Drop) but they seem stuck there and are not picked up by the 'SharePoint Foundation Incoming E-Mail timer job'. Moreover, the outgoing e-mail functionality is not affected.

Additionally, you see the following information in the ULS logs on the server:

[Date and Time] OWSTIMER.EXE (0x1C64) 0x086C SharePoint Foundation E-Mail 6873 Warning An error occurred while processing the incoming e-mail file C:\inetpub\mailroot\Drop\d74cf08401cd4f3b00000005.eml. The error was: Unknown alias: Test... eda2d81c-9ac4-4cad-b50e-f84198023084

......

[Date and Time] OWSTIMER.EXE (0x1C64) 0x086C SharePoint Foundation E-Mail 0000 High E-mail cannot be delivered because site is over quota or locked for editing. Site URL: https://siteURL eda2d81c-9ac4-4cad-b50e-f84198023084

[Date and Time] OWSTIMER.EXE (0x1C64) 0x086C SharePoint Foundation E-Mail 6871 Information The Incoming E-Mail service has completed a batch. The elapsed time was 00:00:00. The service processed 10 message(s) in total. Errors occurred processing 10 message(s): Message ID: Message ID: Message ID: Message ID: Message ID: Message ID: Message ID: Message ID: Message ID: Message ID: The following aliases were unknown: test……. eda2d81c-9ac4-4cad-b50e-f84198023084

Okay. I do not recall setting any sort of quota limit in my environment so the site being locked or set to read-only should not be a cause. Anyways, I re-looked at the quota settings for the site and it was not locked. So, this message seems to be logged even when the site is not locked and there is no quota limit set.

 

unlocked

 

Now I also know that the steps outlined in Configure incoming e-mail (SharePoint Foundation 2010) are right as I have configured incoming e-mails on SharePoint environments in the past without hitting any major roadblocks.

Cause

This issue was first reported in April 2012 CU (version: 14.0.6120.5000) and persists with the June 2012 CU (re-release of April CU - version: 14.0.6120.5006)

Workaround/Resolution

The workaround/resolution for this issue is to configure a simple quota limit as follows

  • Browse to the SharePoint Central Administration | Application Management | Configure quotas and locks under 'Site Collections' section and select the web application to configure
  • In the 'Site Quota Information' section, select “Limit site storage to a maximum of:” option, set a limit to say 10000 Mb and press OK

updated

Once you implement these steps, all the emails which have accumulated in the SMTP folder will be processed and delivered to the destination address.

-  Happy SharePointing!