by Amit Singh
Summary: In Exchange Server, you need to remove the move requests, created to move mailboxes and other items, after migration. In this article, you’ll learn how to remove the move requests. You’ll also learn the ways to resolve the issues if occur when removing the move requests. In addition, you’ll find about an EDB converter software that can directly move mailboxes and other data from database file to a live Exchange Server.
In Exchange Server, you can move public folders and mailboxes from one database to another on the same server or to a database on another Exchange Server in the infrastructure. To Migrate On-Premises, Hosted Exchange Server to another, you need to create a move request. The move request will remain active and appear in the server requests, even if it was successful or not.
When you have a large number of move requests, especially from a previous migration, you will end up scrolling through a lot of requests. Also, this might interrupt updates or migrations to other Exchange Servers. For this reason, you need to clear the requests from time-to-time or after a big migration.
How to Remove the Move Request?
To remove a particular move request, you need to use the Remove-MoveRequest command (as given below) in the Exchange Management Shell (EMS).
Remove-MoveRequest -Identity “<user in request>”
This will remove the desired request. To verify if the move request is removed, you can run the Get-MoveRequest and the Get-MoveRequestStatistics commands.
If you have made a lot of move requests due to a migration or an issue with the database, you can automate the process and remove all the move requests at once. For this, you can use the following PowerShell command having a combination of both the Get-MoveRequest and the Remove-MoveRequest.
Get-MoveRequest -ResultSize Unlimited | Remove-MoveRequest -Confirm:$false
If you want to confirm each entry one-by-one, you can remove the -Confirm:$false and replace it with -Confirm:$true.
What if the Move Requests Fail to Remove?
In a normal scenario, you would not face any issues and the move requests should be cleared. However, in some cases, you would end up with issues and the move requests fail to remove. And you’ll encounter the below errors.
WARNING: The move request for user is invalid: The Active Directory user isn’t being moved.
WARNING: The move request for user is invalid: Couldn’t find user in Active Directory.
These issues may occur if the users have been modified after the move request is made. Therefore, it is always a best practice that the request is removed, after a move is completed, to prevent such issues.
To remove the request, instead of the user, you need to use the GUID of the object as this is a unique identifier which doesn’t change even when the object is modified.
To get the requests that have been failed, you can run the following command or go through the errors.
$DBs = Get-MailboxDatabase; $MoveReqs = $DBs | % {Get-MoveRequestStatistics -MoveRequestQueue $_.Name -EA SilentlyContinue} | Select MailboxIdentity,ExchangeGuid,RequestQueue,StatusDetail
This will show all the failures and their GUID as well.
Now, to remove the failed requests, you need to use the Remove-MoveRequest command and use the GUID in the command.
Remove-MoveRequest -MailboxGuid <guid from results>
This should remove the move requests.
To Conclude
To migrate or move mailboxes and other data from one database to another or one Exchange Server to another, you need to create move requests. After that, you need to remove these move requests. However, sometimes, move requests fail to remove due to various reasons. In such a case, you can follow the above solutions to fix the issue.
In case the move requests or remove move requests failed, there might be underlying issues with the database. In such a case, you can use an EDB to PST Converter software, like Stellar Converter for EDB to migrate the mailboxes and other data. This software can open multiple Exchange Server databases from any version and export the data to PST and other file formats. In this case, you can create a new mailbox database and directly export the data to the live database using the software. You can also use the application to migrate to a newer Exchange Server and Office 365.
