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Topology Discovery failed 0x80040a02

Published 12 February 06 01:02 PM | Frederick.Chapleau

Debuging Exchange services can be hard. Even if Microsoft doesn't help with their Extensive and Easy to use knowledgebase.

Maybe I can help with this post.

Process WINMGMT.EXE (PID)=996. Topology Discovery failed, Process MAD.EXE Topology Discovery failed, error 0x80040a02. , Network Connections Service does not want to start, or everything that is weird after installing Exchange 2003 Server can be a security issue.

Thanks to wtb5 (even if I don't know who he is)

-At the domain controller open Active Director Users and computers.
- Right click on the domain container and click on properties.
-Click on the Group Policy tab, hi-light the default domain policy and click on the edit button.
-Expand the default domain policy tree: Computer configuration, windows settings, security settings, local policies, user rights assigned.
-In the right hand pane open the "Manage auditing and security log" policy.
-In my case I had to click on the Add button then the browse button, then find and select the ôExchange Enterprise Serversö user.
-Restart the Exchange server and things are working again!

... you don't even need to restart Windows! What a deal!

-f.

Comments

# Bob said on December 8, 2007 01:50 PM:

Hi, I like you!

# Ben Rayner said on January 15, 2008 06:19 PM:

Thanks!

I was installing a 2nd Exchange 2003 server to my domain. DCDIAG etc ran ok preinstall.

Exchange install hung at Starting MSExchangeSA service (service said starting). I terminated the mad.exe process (the MSExchangeSA service) and it would not start. Event log mentioned not able to contact DC's and GC's.

Changed the Group Policy as you suggested....waited a bit (2 mins)..killed the mad.exe process again, restarted the MSExchange System Attendant service  and bingo the service started and Exchange install completed.

I have now rebooted and the event logs are clean..going to run Exchange best practice tool now.

thanks again

# Ru said on February 28, 2008 06:42 AM:

Thank you sooooo much, worked a charm.

# MartinHTN said on April 11, 2008 10:44 AM:

Shouldn’t the GPO be Default Domain CONTROLLERS Policy, not Default Domain Policy? There is a big difference between these. I looked at two separate AD domains and the Exchange setting mentioned is only in Default Domain CONTROLLERS Policy.

# Peter said on September 7, 2008 04:11 PM:

Thanks. It worked

# PaulM said on September 8, 2008 11:39 PM:

Worked a treat... Nice.

Thanks for keeping it simple.

# GMichael said on September 15, 2008 04:27 AM:

Thanks.Your post had the best step by step quide i have ever used to solve a problem.very straight forward. It worked GREAT!!

Once again thank you.

# KevinK said on October 14, 2008 12:37 AM:

Thanks, I spent countless hours today trying to recover from a DCPromo gone awry. This was the last piece that seems to have solved my problem. Thank you sir!

# NathanT said on October 22, 2008 01:19 AM:

Fantasic fix.  Prestaged DCPromo gone a bit loose.  Now looking good.

# Jack said on December 4, 2008 04:28 PM:

Thank you! It's at times like this you wonder what kind of morons Bill Gates is employing!

Again, thank you for sharing. It wrked for me too!

# Yuriy said on December 5, 2008 06:38 PM:

Excellent! For Exchange 2007 this solution may be applied too!

Thank you very many)))

# guest said on December 8, 2008 09:29 PM:

I have similar issue, and I have tried the steps that recommended above.  it seems like no luck.  Any ideas?

thank

Here is the error I got:

Process STORE.EXE (PID=3696). Topology discovery failed, error 0x8007077f.

Process MSEXCHANGEADTOPOLOGYSERVICE.EXE (PID=1368). Topology discovery failed, error 0x8007077f.

Unable to initialize the Microsoft Exchange Information Store service.   - Error 0xfaf.

# daveyyoung said on January 28, 2009 07:27 AM:

Just wanted to thank you for the blog.  Dug me out a hole when 'someone' decided to wipe the default domain policy which in turn stopped the exchange servers working!

LEGEND!

# Matt S said on August 30, 2009 09:31 PM:

Thank you so much.  We moved to a new building and our IP scheme changed.  Server was working, but then after a power outage it stopped (rearranging the UPS systems).  I couldn't find a single piece of useful info from Micro$oft, and I was astounded at just how incredibly easy this was to fix once I found this post.  You've saved me many horrible painful hours of troubleshooting on this.  :)

# Stuatr M said on November 18, 2009 05:26 AM:

Wow you are a life saver.

Just rolled out new Default Domain Controllers Policy and forgot this.  You are a life saver!

# GASman said on December 1, 2009 02:34 AM:

This worked for me on Exchange 2007.  I was running into the same predicament with a bad dcpromo issue.   Somehow, the default group policy on the 2003 server did not transfer that setting onto the 2008 server under Group Policy and it caused my Exchange Server to go nuts; I couldn't open Network Properties, Explorer.exe kept crashing, just weird random stuff on Exchange.  I had to go and add my "Exchange Servers" instead of the Exchange Enterprise Servers group which must be a little different than in Exchange 2003.  All in all, a great fix.  It saved me a Microsoft Support call.   Also, the main issue why I was having an Active Directory demotion problem, was that I was missing a .dll file.  The name of the file in case anyone ever runs across this was msvcp60.dll.

Best wishes to whoever came up with the original fix and all of you guys on here for posting!

# Isaak said on December 2, 2009 02:43 PM:

Well i have the same issue on a server and i gonna try your solution tommoz .i'm a little desperate right now so if that fix works i m'gonna thank you for all eternity !

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