¶ Overview
Creating database copies in an Exchange Server DAG (2013/2016) frequently fails — especially when circular logging was recently enabled or changed. Several different error messages can appear, for example:
The seeding operation failed. Error: An error occurred while performing the seed operation. Error: Failed to notify source server 'ExchangeServer FQDN' about the local truncation point. Hresult: 0xc8000713. Error: Unable to find the file. [Database: DATABASE, Server: ExchangeServer FQDN]
or
or
All of these can be worked around with a small trick: ignore the error initially, create the replication config anyway, adjust the DB config, and then restart seeding.
This is specifically the right approach when circular logging is active right before you try to add a database copy. Dismounting, disabling circular logging, and immediately retrying tends to produce various errors — the workaround below handles that.
¶ Quick Guide
First disable circular logging so a copy can be created at all:
Dismount-Database DB01
Set-MailboxDatabase DB01 -CircularLoggingEnabled:$false
Mount-Database DB01Then add the copy:
Add-MailboxDatabaseCopy DB01 -MailboxServer <targetserver> -ActivationPreference 2An error may appear here — that's okay. The database copy configuration gets created regardless. Do not undo this step.
Re-enable circular logging (if it was on before) to make the state consistent and ready for replication:
Dismount-Database DB01
Set-MailboxDatabase DB01 -CircularLoggingEnabled:$true
Mount-Database DB01Then restart seeding to initialize and cleanly write the database:
Suspend-MailboxDatabaseCopy DB01 argetserver
Update-MailboxDatabaseCopy DB01 argetserver -SourceServer <sourceserver> -DeleteExistingFiles -BeginSeedMonitor progress:
Get-MailboxDatabase | Get-MailboxDatabaseCopyStatus¶ Note
Circular logging is generally not recommended. That said, in a DAG environment it's actually acceptable since multiple database copies exist and can be configured with staggered lag times. Still — once replication is healthy, disabling circular logging again is the right call.
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