What is Exchange Dirty Shutdown Error

What is Exchange Dirty Shutdown Error

In case you are stuck with the same query that What is Exchange Dirty Shutdown Error? Then this article is developed for you with all the relevant information and possible solution for this error. However, before a precise discussion about the problem, it would be preferable to step down into the basic information about Exchange Server.

Exchange Server:

Exchange server may be defined as a calendaring or mail server offering ample amount of facilities like managing multiple email programs. It can be used as software as a service or as on-premise software.

Essential Role of Log Files in Exchange Server

The log files of different transactions are not only to keep track of all processes. Log files play a vital role in the proper working of the database of Exchange Server.
Inconsistencies in the transaction log files may lead to the inappropriate working of Exchange Server.
Every modification or change done in Exchange database is being tracked by transaction log files. Any data that is to be updated to the database does not get submitted directly to the database. Before that, the data is registered in log files. One more thing to keep in mind that size of the log file is fixed, once get full, another one is automatically created with a new sequence number.

How significant log files are for Exchange Dirty Shutdown

It is very important that the Exchange database shut down properly so that it can start smoothly afterward. For the proper shutdown of Exchange database, it is mandatory for log files data to get committed to the database files. After all log data get committed then the database is considered as detached from the log files leads to clean shutdown.
If during the start up of server it is found that log files are still attached to the database then that would lead to Dirty Shutdown.
Initially, the server should detach the database from transaction log files and then proceed.

How to get rid of Dirty Shutdown Error

First, you need to verify that the Exchange is in clean or dirty shutdown state.
If the database remains inconsistent then you will get the Error HR=0X80004005 i.e. dirty shutdown error. Given below methods can be used to fix this error:

• In case the database is in a clean state or consistent then you can resolve the issue with soft recovery. The Powershell command to perform recovery is:
  eseutil /r een /L[path to log files] /s[path to checkpoint file] /d[path of database file] /i
• If the database is not consistent with log files in a dirty state then you need to go for hard recovery. If a recent and valid backup is available then LOG, EDB and STM files can be easily restored from that. After the completion of the restoration process, a file named as ‘restore.env’ is created in a temporary folder with the name ‘C:\Temp’ and syntax for hard recovery is:
  Eseutil /cc “Path of the restore.env containing folder”.
• In case any backup is not available then follow: eseutil /p
  Once the process gets completed then you should check the database consistency again: run eseutil with \mh.
• In the last step, you just need to rearrange the Exchange database by defragmentation process to reduce the disk space by removing the unused pages. Syntax for the defragmentation is: eseutil /d Database_Name

Conclusion

The above-mentioned methods are too tedious and full of risk, In order to avoid the risk to your data, try Exchange EDB Recovery as the best solution to this error.