New-MailboxExportRequest Exchange 2010 Couldn't Connect to The Source Mailbox

How to Fix New-MailboxExportRequest Exchange 2010 Couldn't Connect to The Source Mailbox?

Query: “Are you trying to export primary mailbox data from Exchange to archive Outlook PST file format using New-MailboxExportRequest command and getting Exchange new-mailboxexportrequest couldn't connect to the source mailbox issue? So, let’s know how to fix new-mailboxexportrequest failed error in a proper way. The below solution is applicable to Exchange Server 2019, 2016, 2013 and 2010.”

The MS Exchange Server has a feature to export the contents of a primary mailbox or archive to a PST file with the help of New-MailboxExportRequest cmdlet. User can create more than one mailbox export request per mailbox and each mailbox export request should have a unique name.


There is also an option to remove existing export request by using the Remove-MailboxExportRequest cmdlet provided by the Exchange Server. Sometimes, user may have issue while trying to use the New-MailboxExportRequest and may get error that it could not connect to the source mailbox. The blog will be discussing about the solution on how we can fix the same issue and use New-MailboxExportRequest feature effectively.

Note: User can Export the Exchange mailbox to PST by using the automated wizard provided by SysTools i.e. Exchange Export Tool. This utility is capable enough to export several Exchange mailboxes such as: exclude dumpster, disconnected, enabled, disabled, journal, hosted, corrupt from Live Exchange Server (2016/2013/2010/2007/2003) to the Outlook data file in a hassle free way. 

If you are new to the Microsoft Exchange Server environment and does not know how to create PST file from from Exchange Server, then use can use this professional software to make the Outlook data file from MS Exchange in a simplified way.  

New-MailboxExportRequest Exchange 2010 Couldn't Connect to The Source Mailbox - Error

The user of Exchange Server may not be able to use the feature to export the contents of a primary mailbox to an Outlook PST file using New-MailboxExportRequest. Due to some issues, user may not be able to export Exchange mailbox to PST file using New-MailboxExportRequest and displaying the following error “Exchange 2010 mailbox export could not connect to the source mailbox.” The following command will be entered to export the content of mailbox to a desired PST file:

New-MailboxExportRequest–Mailbox USERID–FilePath\\SERVERNAME \SHAREPATH\name.pst

For exporting a mailbox, we will use New-MailboxExportRequest command with the Mailbox parameter, to specify the mailbox from where the contents needs to be exported along with the FilePath parameter, and define the desired PST file to create and export data to.

In order to get more information, we can add “-Verbose” to the above command like:

New-MailboxExportRequest–MailboxUSERID–FilePath\\SERVERNAME\ SHAREPATH\name.pst-Verbose

Note:Before going for any solution first try login to account using OWA. If you can not login to account then first resolve this error and then try to Export Mailbox. If you are able to login to OWA and still getting error "Exchange Couldn't connect to the Source Mailbox" when trying to run New-MailboxExportRequest command then you have to go to the below solution.

How to Fix New-MailboxExportRequest command and getting Exchange new-mailboxexportrequest couldn't connect to the source mailbox Issue

Most of the problem with Export-Mailbox faced by Exchange Administrators is associated with MAPI protocol. This protocol permits the access to a Microsoft Exchange Mailbox from a MAPI client like Microsoft Outlook. 

Therefore, the first thing to do is to check if the MAPI protocol is enabled or not as it is the core protocol that is needed for connecting to Outlook.  If the user wants to export the Exchange (2019, 2016, 2013 and 2010) user mailbox while it is online, user needs to check the MAPIBlockOutlookNonCachedMode feature. 

Following are the steps to fix the issue related to New-MailboxExportRequest couldn't connect to the source mailbox.

• To see if the MAPI mode is enabled or not, we need to check the Client Access Server mailbox status of the user. For this, the following command can be used.
  Get-CASMailbox –Identify user name We will determine the MAPI status if it is true or false.
  Alternatively, we can check the properties of the mailbox to see if MAPI is enabled or not.

Mailbox Properties

• Even if the MAPI mode was True, we will stop it and set it as false using the command given below.
• Set-CASMailbox ID –MAPIBlockOutlookNonCachedMode:$false
• Again, we need to enable it, as MAPI protocol is necessary for exporting the contents of Mailbox to Outlook PST file using the command: Set-CASMailbox ID –MAPIBlockOutlookNonCachedMode:$True
  
• Now we will run the same command for exporting the Exchange mailbox data to Outlook PST file using New-MailboxExportRequest with the command:
  New-MailboxExportRequest–Mailbox USERID– FilePath\\SERVERNAME\ SHAREPATH\name.pst
• After restarting the MAPI protocol option, we can see that we are able to export the mailbox items from Exchange Server to Outlook PST file and the error for not being able to connect to the source mailbox is not encountered anymore.

Note: The New-MailboxExportRequest Exchange PowerShell cmdlet only export the content primary and archive mailbox only from on-premise Exchange and most of the users are having dismounted or offline Exchange database file and this manual solution cannot perform this conversion. So, in this case, users can use the advanced SysTools EDB Converter Tool which supports these .edb files (Public & Private) and used by many IT professionals, Exchange as well as novice users to move Exchange database to PST and other file formats without using any command in a simplified manner. By default, it creates UNICODE PST file.

Conclusion

When users try to export EDB mailbox to PST using PowerShell cmdlet Exchange 2010 using New-MailboxExportRequest cmdlet, then they face the New-MailboxExportRequest Exchange 2010 couldn't connect to the source mailbox is generally displayed. The blog focuses on the same error and the solution on how we can fix it. The MAPI protocol needs to be enabled in order to give access to the MS Exchange mailbox from a MAPI client like MS Outlook. Even if the protocol was already enabled, the solution suggests that we will disable the MAPI mode again and enable it later for successfully exporting the mailbox to Outlook PST file. If users find any difficulty again while exporting the Exchange database mailboxes then it is strongly recommended to use the advanced software i.e. Exchange Export Tool provided above. In the next article, we discuss how we can restore exchange mailbox again in to the database using PowerShell commands.