How to Use the New-MailboxRepairRequest Cmdlet in Exchange Server

Mailboxes hold high importance in the Exchange Server, as they facilitate smooth communication and collaboration within and outside the organization. At times, they may stop working properly because of data corruption, disabling you from sending and receiving regular business emails. This necessitates the need to find the reason behind the error and resolve it immediately. In case you are working in on-premises Exchange, you can use the New-MailboxRepairRequest cmdlet to serve this purpose. Here is a detailed discussion on this PowerShell cmdlet.

What is the need for the New-MailboxRepairRequest command?

Admins using shared Exchange mailboxes used to face several common issues, such as:

• Search problems
• Access failures
• Display errors

To fix these issues, they mostly relied on three resolutions:

• Export Exchange data to PST, followed by recreating the mailbox
• Leveraging the Isinteg tool on an offline or dismounted database
• Restoring the mailbox using a backup, which used to risk loss of data

While these methods were effective, they had certain limitations, such as

• Risk of data loss in case of restore
• Disrupting other users when dismounting the database

To overcome these issues efficiently, Exchange Server introduced the New-MailboxRepairRequest cmdlet with its 2010 SP1 version, as the successor of the Isinteg tool.

New-MailboxRepairRequest: A brief description

The PowerShell cmdlet is instrumental in addressing several issues arising in the Exchange mailbox:  

• Issues in the mailbox and its contents, such as calendar items
• Search and functionality  issues
• Improving the health of corruption folders in the Exchange Server
• Detecting and resolving minor corruptions
• Can run online without the need to dismount the database

It fixes four different types of mailbox corruptions:

• Search Folder Corruption: Fixes errors related to search folder errors after doing a deep scan of your mailbox
• Aggregate Counts Corruption: Errors related to AggregateCounts – number of items and their sizes in mailbox folders
• Folder View Corruption: Errors related to content displayed in the mailbox folder  
• Provisioned Folder Corruption: Errors in the folder structure of a mailbox

Points to consider before using the New-MailboxRepairRequest command

Before you proceed to use the New-MailboxRepairRequest cmdlet, here are some crucial points you must know:

• The command repairs single user mailbox or the whole database without dismounting it
• It only disrupts the mailbox that is currently under repair
• You cannot stop the repair request without dismounting the database
• At a time, the server allows only one active request for the database-level repair
• For a mailbox-level repair, the server allows up to 100 requests
• You should have the necessary Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) roles and permissions to run the cmdlet

How to use the New-MailboxRepairRequest cmdlet?

Listed below are some of the main applications of this command to repair the corrupt database in the Exchange Server

1. Repair a single mailbox

New-MailboxRepairRequest -Mailbox [email protected]” -CorruptionType SearchFolder, AggregateCounts, FolderView, ProvisionedFolder

Description:

• [email protected] – mailbox you wish to repair
• corruptionType: The type of corruption that you want to repair

2. Repair all the database mailboxes, including folders and subfolders

Follow the command below for this task.

New-MailboxRepairRequest -Database “MailboxDatabase1” -CorruptionType SearchFolder, AggregateCounts, FolderView, ProvisionedFolder

Description:

MailboxDatabase1: The database whose all the mailboxes and the included folders/subfolders that need repair.

3. Repair the mailbox on a selected Exchange Server

Here is the command to perform this specific repair:

New-MailboxRepairRequest -Mailbox “[email protected]” -CorruptionType FolderView -Server “ExchangeServer01”

ExchangeServer01: Name of the Exchange Server that hosts the mailbox, which you have to repair

[email protected]: The mailbox that needs repair

4. Get the status of the repair request

The New-MailboxRepairRequest does not inform you about the status of the repair request. To find out its existing state, you can use the Get-MailboxRepairRequest cmdlet. Here is the command:

Get-MailboxRepairRequest –Database <Your Database Name >

Parameters used with the New-MailboxRepairRequest

The cmdlet performs the repair operation with the help of specific parameters. Here are some of them:

–Mailbox: Indicates the mailbox in which you wish to find corruption or repair. Values for this parameter could be Name, Alias, GUID, Email Address, and so on. It should be able to identify the mailbox uniquely.

–Database: The parameter detects corruption or repairs it in all mailboxes of a selected database. Any value, such as a distinguished name (DN), a GUID that uniquely identifies the database, will be suitable to use with it.

–Archive: Detects or repairs corruption in the archive mailbox linked with the selected mailbox. Avoiding this switch will include the primary mailbox by default.

–Confirm:  This switch specifies if you wish to hide or show the confirmation prompt. It applies to Exchange Server 2010, 2013, and later versions.

–CorruptionType: This parameter mentions the type of corruption that you wish to detect and repair. Here are some of the values:

• AggregateCounts*: Performed on folders that do not show correct values.
• CleanupFilesFolder*: Applicable for Exchange 2016 or later versions
• AbandonedMoveDestination*: Applicable on Exchange 2016 or later versions with the Database parameter only.

In addition to these, you can use several other parameters with the New-MailboxRepairRequest for the corruption detection or repair process, for example:

• -DetectOnly
• -DomainController
• -Force
• -StoreMailbox
• -WhatIf

Limitations of New-MailboxRepairRequest

While the New-MailboxRepairRequest cmdlet entails several Exchange recovery benefits when used with distinct parameters, it has several shortcomings as well.

• Takes considerable time to repair large Exchange databases
• Does not provide real-time logs to find out the repair status
• Can resolve only minor corruptions
• Incapable of fixing severe database corruption in the Exchange Server

Using any of the Exchange recovery software can be a suitable alternative to capitalize over this manual method.

Alternative to New-MailboxRepairRequest

As mentioned already, the New-MailboxRepairRequest alone is not capable of removing severe corruption in the Exchange database. To deal with this issue, admins prefer using several Exchange recovery tools, such as Stellar Repair for Exchange.  It will serve manifold benefits:

• Repairs the corrupt EDB files
• Repairs the mailboxes, along with their folders, subfolders, and shared folders
• Saves the recovered mailboxes to PST files
• Exports the recovered mailboxes to Microsoft 365 or live Exchange Server
• Supports  Exchange Server 2019, 2016, 2013, 2010, 2007, 2003, 2000 & 5.5

Conclusion

The New-MailboxRepairRequest cmdlet helps to repair the corrupt Exchange databases. It eliminates shortcomings of the Isinteg tool that was earlier used to sort out issues related to mailbox searches, access failures, and display errors. The New-MailboxRepairRequest cmdlet answers these issues significantly. It carries out the mailbox repair without disturbing the other mailboxes with the help of various parameters, such as –mailbox, -database, -confirm, and more.

The command also fixes four distinct types of errors, including search folders, aggregate counts, folder view, and provisioned folder corruption. Besides, it can repair a single mailbox or all the mailboxes in an Exchange Database. You can use it to repair a mailbox on a specific Exchange Server. However, to know the status of the repair request, you will have to use Get-MailboxRepairRequest.

Alongside multiple benefits of the New-MailboxRepairRequest command, it also has several drawbacks. For example, it consumes too much time in repairing large databases and is ineffective in repairing severe Exchange database corruptions. To address these shortcomings, several Exchange recovery tools available online can be extremely beneficial. Stellar Repair for Exchange is a feasible option to consider in this regard.