Hi Folks,

I was away on holiday in South Africa and on my return, a colleague of mine mentioned that the BizTalk receive locations were unexpectedly shutting down. It would always be a random receive location.

We had just reached 50 receive locations and growing. In the Event Log BizTalk would complain:

Event Type: Error
Event Source: BizTalk Server 2006
Event Category: (1)
Event ID: 5649
Date: Date
Time: Time
User: N/A
Computer: ComputerName
Description:
The receive location "FileReceive" with URL "\\ServerName\FileDrop\FileName.FileNameExtension" is shutting down. Details:"The FILE receive location \\ServerName\FileDrop\FileName.FileNameExtension exhausted the network retry attempts. ".

 

The problem here is due to the application level protocol management system within windows. This all has to do with the LanMan server and LanMan workstation service within windows. Since these services are used to manage UNC connections to folder shares and the tried and trusted Service Message Block application protocol is used here.

To resolve this problem, increase the MaxCmds and MaxMpxCt registry values on the BizTalk Server computer and on the remote UNC Share computer. To do this, follow the steps that are described in Microsoft Knowledge Base article 810886.
For more information, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

This issue may occur if the following conditions are true:

• This issue may occur if the client computer submits simultaneous, long-term requests against a file server that uses the Server Message Block (SMB) protocol. An example of a long-term request is when a client computer uses the FindFirstChangeNotification function to monitor a server share for changes.
• This issue may occur if the MaxCmds registry value setting on the client is less than 50, or the MaxMpxCtregistry value setting on the server is less than 50.
  Note The MaxMpxCt registry value setting may have a different name on other SMB/CIFS implementations. The Common Internet File System (CIFS) specification refers to it as MaxMpxCount.

In our case it was the former that caused it, since we had 50 receive locations. So we need to increase the value from 50 to let says 200.

To resolve this issue, verify that the MaxCmds and MaxMpxCt registry values are set to 50 or more. To do this, follow these steps:

1. Click Start, click Run, type regedit, and then click OK.
2. Locate and then click the following key in the registry:

   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\lanmanworkstation\parameters

3. In the right pane, double-click the MaxCmds value.
4. In the Value data box, verify that the value is 50 or more.
   Note In a Microsoft Windows Terminal Services environment, you may have to set the MaxCmds registry value to 500 or more. For more information, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

   232476 Terminal Server client connections and logon limited by MaxWorkItem and MaxMpxCt values

5. Locate and then click the following key in the registry:

   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\lanmanserver\parameters

   Note Make sure that you make this change to the lanmanserver\parameters registry key and not to thelanmanworkstation\parameters registry key mentioned in step 2.

6. In the right-pane, double-click the MaxMpxCt value.
   Note On SMB servers that are running a version of Windows earlier than Windows 2000, the MaxMpxCt registry entry is named MaxMpxCount, but has the same function.
7. In the Value data box, verify that the value is 50 or more.
   Note The MaxMpxCt value determines the maximum number of simultaneous, active requests that the server permits from an individual client.
8. Quit Registry Editor.

Note The MaxCmds and MaxMpxCt registry entries are REG_DWORD decimal entries. If they do not exist on your computer, you can create them as new REG_DWORD values. The range of values for these registry entries is between 0 and 65535.

It is important that you make this registry change on:

1. All BizTalk Servers
2. All File Share Servers being monitored

Happy BizTalking!

Here is a recent picture of South Africa where I am visiting a herd of elephants at the Thula Thula private game reserve:

Yes the elephants were not happy with us. On this day, we actually got mocked charged by a female elephant which is very rare, since the matriarch is usually responsible for this, maybe he was on sick leave! So with everything in life, and as Nature teaches us, we all have our limits, and with these elephants, it was overstaying our invitation.  The female in the background was within 4 metres from us by the time we put the peddle to the metal!

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