A badly scoped powershell to remove a exchange server as PF replica deletes multiple public folders..
Solution
PFDAVAdmin was able to recover the Public Folders which were smaller in size but we had a PF which was in the range of 380gigs, PFDAVAdmin hanged while recovering and timed-out,The following events were logged in Application log,
The PF database locked for a few mins and none of the PF's on this folder
were available, this issue auto resolved and the PF's were available after 5-6 mins.
PFDAVAdmin was run again from a different system (AD server),again it hanged but there were no time-outs reported in the Application Log, Over a period of time some PF's were recovered but not in the original hierarchy but at the root of the PF tree.
Note that the custom proxy addresses are gone once you recover the PF's via
PFDAVAdmin or via a backup restore.
Since the 380 gig PF was not recoverable via PFDAVAdmin we used Ontrack Power Controls. The PF database backup taken prior to this issue was
restored to a temp drive and then a PF-by-PF restoration executed, permissions were not lost though custom proxy addresses had to be manually
populated.
Recommendation
If you have a massive Public Folder infra then make sure to backup the permissions and proxy addresses atleast once every week, PFDAVAdmin command
line options can be used to automate this procedure.
ADModify could also be used, but this requires the proxies to be first
exported (removed) and stored in a xml file and then imported back.
PFDAVAdmin doesnot work on such massive PF's and restore from backup plus a tool like Power Controls is the only available option.Also as mentioned above make sure to backup proxy addresses and permissions weekly.
to be contd..
