MessageStats 7.8 - Release Notes

Table of Contents

Quest® MessageStats® 7.8 About this release New features Upgrading from a previous release Resolved issues Known issues Supported platforms System requirements Product licensing Getting started with MessageStats 7.8 Globalization About us

Resolved issues

The following is a list of issues addressed in this release.

Table 1. Resolved issues in this release.
	Issue ID
After customers installed the Microsoft security update KB5001779 (released April 2021) on their Exchange servers, all PowerShell-related gathering tasks on the Exchange servers failed with the error “The syntax is not supported by this runspace. This can occur if the runspace is in no-language mode.”	255528
After updating the MessageStats SQL database to 7.7 and installing MessageStats binaries on a Windows 2016 server, the default gathering task for Exchange 2010 and 2016 failed with error message: "....System.ArgumentException: Keyword not supported: 'server spn'. The SQL connection string was not recognized by the SQL server.	251241
When installing MessageStats, the customer encountered issues with SQL communication when using a custom port number.	251236

Known issues

The following is a list of issues, including those attributed to third-party products, known to exist at the time of release.

Table 2. Installation known issues

Known issue

Issue ID

If you install and run MessageStats using a user account that does not belong to the Domain Administrators group, certain functions will not work correctly:

•

You cannot perform the following actions:

Open File | Administrative Options in Internet Explorer but you can open in MMC | 'MessageStats Reports.

Open Subscriptions | Configure Subscriptions in Internet Explorer but you can open in MMC | MessageStats Reports.

See any custom report/graph/folder/subscriptions in Internet Explorer that were created in MMC | MessageStats Reports.

Change the domain and user name while setting the account of subscription in Internet Explorer but can change in MMC → 'MessageStats Reports'.

Show "Show Subscriptions for all users" checkbox in Internet Explorer but can be viewed in MMC | MessageStats Reports.

•

Sometimes Web Reports cannot be opened in Internet Explorer and the following error is displayed: "An error occurred on the server when processing the URL. Please contact the system administrator".

•

Sometimes Web Reports cannot be opened in Internet Explorer and the following error is displayed: "Unable to create copy templates file to [My Reports] folders".

Workaround

You can disable UAC in the registry.

Browse to the following location in the registry:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System

In the right pane, modify the value of the EnableLUA DWORD value and set it to 0.

Restart the client.

MessageStats does not support the installation of the MessageStats database on the same SQL Server instance as the Archiving or the CDR database for Microsoft Lync Server or Skype for Business server.

NOTE: For performance and troubleshooting reasons, Microsoft does not recommend configurations in which the server that is hosting an Archiving or CDR database is used to host other SQL applications.

63311

The MessageStats installer does not verify the server name that is entered for the MessageStats Scheduler Service. As a result, an incorrect server name causes an error to occur later in the installation process. To correct this problem, remove MessageStats and re-install with the correct name for the scheduler server.

MessageStats does not support the installation on a domain controller (DC) or on an Exchange server.

When installing a report pack in a distributed MessageStats installation, you must install the report pack task processors on the server that hosts the MessageStats Scheduler Service, even if you do not plan to run the report pack tasks on that server. The scheduler service manages all remote task processors and the service needs to know the task dependencies of all tasks, including the report pack tasks.

MessageStats does not support case sensitivity on SQL Server. Some non-Latin database collations can cause SQL Server to observe case sensitivity.

During installation, if the installation account and the MessageStats service account are different, the MessageStats installer requests a reboot. This reboot is required to ensure that the Service Account has the appropriate rights to run the service.

NOTE: On x64 implementations, a reboot is requested and the MessageStats installer does not resume the installation. In this case, you must rerun the Setup.exe file to continue the installation

33536

SQL Server Agent must be running to use the Database Management tasks: database reindexing, defragmenting, or database aging.

SQL Express (the personal edition of SQL Server) does not include the SQL Server Agent. Database Maintenance tasks are not available when running on SQL Express; you must use full SQL Server.

MessageStats does not support installation for scenarios where the installation files have been encrypted.

Table 3. Console known issues
Known issue	Issue ID
If you have the Sendmail and Postfix report pack installed, when you try to make a change on a Tasks \| Properties page, the following error is displayed “An error occurred while configuring the property dialog and it must shut down...Unable to get property for Sendmail and Postfix (Unexpected error getting qmsConsoleSendmail.QMSSendmailConfigTaskOptions. Class not registered.” Since the report pack is not supported for MessageStats versions 7.5 and later, you must remove the report pack to resolve the issue.	129695
On a rare occasion, you might notice that your tasks and task instances are not displayed in the console. Workaround Close the MessageStats console and stop and start the MessageStats Scheduler Service. When you reopen the console, the tasks and task instances will be shown.	NA
In MessageStats 7.3 and later, MAPI connections to Exchange 2013 organizations are attempted using the client authentication method and host name that is specified for internal Outlook Anywhere clients of the CAS server. In some Exchange environments, MessageStats cannot connect using the internal Outlook Anywhere client settings of the CAS server. Solution You can configure MessageStats tasks to use a different authentication method and host name using the MapCASName utility. The MapCASName utility can be found in the MessageStats installation folder of MessageStats task execution servers. For more information about the utility, see the MessageStats Knowledge Article 121093 (MessageStats is not able to connect using the internal Outlook Anywhere settings).	NA

Table 4. Gathering known issues

Known issue

Issue ID

The Public Folder Content & Attachment gathering and reports are not supported for Exchange 2013/2016/2019 servers.

After you upgrade to MessageStats 7.3 or later, any existing Public Folder Content & Attachment gatherings will cease to work. To resolve this issue, you must regather the organization structure.

To regather the organization structure

In the console treeview, select the Exchange organization.

Right-click and select Regather Structure.

In an Exchange 2013 mixed environment, if you are connected to an Exchange organization using a Exchange 2013 CAS server as the Connect-To server, when you run a Mailbox Content and Attachment gathering against an Exchange 2010 server, it will fail.

Workaround

In the Mailbox MAPI property page in the individual Mailbox Content and Attachment gathering task, manually specify an Exchange 2010 CAS server to be used as the gathering server for the task.

If a gathering task was created using credentials other than the MessageStats service account, and you open the task wizard to modify the task, the task will fail to run due to task credential errors.

Workaround

If you modify a gathering task that does not use the MessageStats service credentials, always re-enter the credentials password before you save the task.

202680

For Exchange 2010 or 2013, when you specify an Exchange Client Access Server (CAS) to be used to connect to the Exchange organization or as the gathering server, you must select an individual Exchange server. You cannot specify a CAS array as the connection server.

123292

When the Microsoft MAPI & CDO download is used as the MAPI subsystem provider, only non-inherited mailbox permissions can be retrieved.

MAPI-based gatherings (mailbox, public folder, and content and attachment gatherings) can unexpectedly fail if run on a machine that has Outlook and Exchange System Manager (ESM) or MAPI & CDO installed.

Running Outlook and ESM or MAPI & CDO on the same machine is not supported due to conflicts in the underlying MAPI components.

Do not install Recovery Manager for Exchange and MessageStats on the same computer. Recovery Manager for Exchange requires both Outlook and Exchange System Manager be installed, and this can cause conflicts with the MAPI components that are required by MessageStats. See the previous issue for details.

MessageStats requires all public folders to have the Folder Visible permission. MessageStats may generate warnings during public folder gatherings while attempting to open public folders and child folders of public folders without this permission.

There is a known issue with the Mailbox gathering for Exchange servers with multiple databases. If not all the Mailbox databases are available on an Exchange server, the gathering task is completed for the available databases and the status for the task is Successful. However, the information for the mailboxes in the unavailable databases is not added to the MessagesStats SQL database.

Table 5. Reports known issues

Known issue

Issue ID

When a customer automated a report as a subscription to send in Microsoft Excel format, the bottom row with calculated averages was omitted from the report. The calculation rows in a report (such as Total, Average, and Count) do not display for the following formats of a subscription email:

•

Excel attachment

•

CSV Inline/attachment

•

TSV Inline/attachment

•

XML attachment

Calculation rows do appear in the following formats of subscription emails:

•

•

•

Upgrading MessageStats can cause some customized reports to fail with the following error "Can't find custom filter entry in schema description". A customized report, in contrast to a custom report, is created when you render a standard report, customize the report, and save the changes using the Save Report Setting feature. If there have been changes to the original standard report in the new release, the customized report that is based on the standard report might fail.

You can recognize a customized report by a small shortcut arrow in the lower right corner of the report icon in the report tree. Customized reports are stored as a .QSRS file instead of as a .QRP file.

Workaround

After you have upgraded to the new version of MessageStats, and if you have found a customized report that is failing, display the original standard report, apply the customizations, and save the changes using the Save Report Setting feature.

343678

In a mixed Exchange environment in which outbound email is routed through a proxy Exchange 2013 Client Access Server (CAS), email messages may not be counted as outbound or inbound in the following scenarios:

•

If an Exchange 2010 mailbox receives an external email through the proxy Exchange 2013 CAS server (with both CAS and mailbox roles), MessageStats cannot determine whether the email is internal or external in the Server Activity report.

•

When a distribution group receives an external email through the proxy Exchange 2013 CAS server, the distribution group reports will not count the received email.

344166

In some situations, administrators cannot create report subscriptions that use a service account. Usually a member of the local Administrators group on the reports web server can set the credentials associated with a subscription to any account in the Web Reports Users group. In a rare scenario, administrators are only able to set the subscription credentials to their own credentials, or those of the user who last modified the subscription.

In this case, administrators cannot use a service account to execute a report subscription.

Workaround

You can create the subscription while you are logged in with the service account or you can add the service account to the local Administrators group on the web server.

Set the credentials of the subscription.

179549

In the Conference Details by Organizer report, If the primary SIP URI for the organizer has changed since the conference occurred, the organizer’s effective policy will display as empty.

MessageStats does not support scenarios where a user's primary mailbox has the same display name as the associated archive mailbox. The display name for a user's primary and archive mailboxes must be different or MessageStats cannot differentiate between the two mailboxes in reports.

When you are editing a custom graph, if you leave the wizard open for an extended period of time, the MessageStats Web Reports application pool may be recycled. Under these conditions, when you click Finish, the following error is displayed: “Unable to validate data”. If you click the browser Back button, the message is cleared but the changes made to the custom graph are lost.

111241

MessageStats Reports subscriptions that contain reports with the "Local Time" enabled will use the daylight savings time settings that were in effect at the time the subscription was created or saved.

To correct the problem, load the subscription, view the filter settings panel for each affected report, and resave the subscription. Before you perform this operation, ensure that the Windows time zone update patch - KB933360 is applied on the machine on which Internet Explorer is running.

Interactive reports and other features of MessageStats Reports are not affected by this problem.

MessageStats Reports cannot run on IIS servers on which the Microsoft Media Server has been installed in the root web directory. An error message appears stating, "Microsoft .Net Framework version x.x must be installed on the IIS server that hosts this application." This error occurs because the Microsoft Media Server applies configuration options that affect all applications running on the server.

By default, times are not displayed in Excel. When exporting reports that contain date/time fields to Microsoft Excel, load the exported file into Excel, select the column containing date/time information, and apply an appropriate Excel format string using the Format | Cells menu command.

MessageStats may differ by 1 KB on values reported in either Microsoft Exchange Administrator or Microsoft Exchange System Manager due to the nature of rounding implemented by Microsoft.

If two identical mailbox display names appear on a report that contains a graph, in the graph the mailboxes are grouped together.

If a distribution group has more than one SMTP address, any SMTP messages that are sent to a non-primary SMTP address are not counted against the recipient distribution group. SMTP messages that are sent to the distribution group's primary SMTP address will be counted.

158976

If a mailbox has more than one SMTP address, the Mailbox Auditing reports do not include SMTP messages with a "From" address that is the secondary SMTP address of the audited mailbox.

162118

Messages sent to Exchange mailboxes that are forwarded to a mail contact are not included in the Mail Contacts reports.

162355

External SMTP-submitted messages that are sent to mail contacts are not included in the Mail Contact reports.

162352

In Skype for Business 2019, if a conference participant presents a whiteboard, Microsoft does not log the McuConferenceUriType as 'conf:applicationsharing’ and, instead, logs the McuConferenceUriType as NULL in the LscCDR database. The Skype for Business reports will therefore show NULL for the MCU Type.

164860

For Windows 2016 or 2019, if a subscription is created and set to run with an account that is not a local administrator, the subscription does not run. The last run time and the last run status shows as “The task has not run yet.”

180588

Supported platforms

MessageStats supports the following Exchange versions:

•

•

•

•

System requirements

Before installing MessageStats 7.8, ensure that your system meets the following minimum hardware and software requirements. The system requirements are divided into two sections:

•

Requirements for the core MessageStats components:

•

Hardware requirements

•

Software requirements

•

Requirements to gather from Microsoft Exchange.

•

Exchange-specific requirements for MessageStats components

Hardware requirements

Table 6. Hardware minimum requirements
Requirement	Details
Processor	Pentium 4, running at a minimum speed of 2.4 GHz
Memory	8 GB
Hard disk space	250 MB of free disk space for installing the application. This space should exist on a local disk drive rather than a network drive. The space requirement varies depending on the size of the database. For help in assessing the amount of space sufficient for your implementation, contact Support to acquire a database size estimation tool. To tune your MessageStats database and maximize performance, contact Professional Services. You can contact Professional Services through your sales representative. NOTE: If you are migrating an existing database, the free disk space requirement is larger than 250 MB. The space requirement varies, depending on the size of the database. If you are upgrading an existing database, the free disk space must be larger than for a new database. Space requirements also depend on the amount of information you write to the database and the length of time you retain the records.
Other	Sufficient space for the temporary tracking log cache, application logs, and task documents. The size of this cache depends on the number of Exchange servers, the number of message tracking logs on each Exchange server, and the size of each tracking log. The space should exist on a local disk drive rather than a network drive. Monitor supporting a resolution of 1024x768 pixels. Pointing device. You must have a pointing device installed on your computer to access all MessageStats features.