BlackBerry Enterprise Server Log, BB device and Outlook Communication, Part II

Part II – Receiving email and notification to BB device

This is second part of my five-part series about BlackBery Enterprise Server Log communication with BB device and Outlook. The first part was about Sending email from BlackBerry (BB) device and from Outlook. If you notice, there are two sets of logs I captured in my first article. From a sender stand point, this is due to user initiated communication, i.e. user initiate the command to send email either from BB device or from Outlook. Contrary, in this article we are going to examine how BES logs the transactions on the recipient end, i.e. receiving email and notification on BB device.

As recipient, incoming email will always hit the mailbox first, thus there will be only one set of transaction we are looking at in the log. Hence, in the log the communication will always start with “Queuing …” This indicate that BES has detected change and it is queuing up for action.

Receiving Email

=== SERVERNAME_MAGT_01_20090123_0001.txt ===
1. [40423] (01/23 12:58:37.754):{0×1AC0} {cat@cheelam.com} Queuing new mail through notification (external). EntryId=280645
2. [40724] (01/23 12:58:37.754):{0×1B44} {cat@cheelam.com} Get record key for this MAPI object, EntryId=280645
3. [40435] (01/23 12:58:37.770):{0×1B44} {cat@cheelam.com} Queuing new mail through notification. EntryId=280645. Msgs Pending 0
4. [30085] (01/23 12:58:37.785):{0×1B44} {cat@cheelam.com} New mail has arrived, EntryId=280645
5. [40287] (01/23 12:58:37.864):{0×1B44} {cat@cheelam.com} Queuing message, RefId=-1501630049, EntryId=280645, Posted=01/23 12:58:00, Delivered=01/23 12:58:36
6. [30066] (01/23 12:58:37.864):{0×1B44} Total Msgs Pending 1
7. [30081] (01/23 12:58:37.926):{0×1B40} {cat@cheelam.com} Sending message to device, size=243, EntryId=280645, RefId=-1501630049, TransactionId=-914755541, Tag=581226
8. [40279] (01/23 12:58:37.926):{0×1B40} {cat@cheelam.com} SubmitToRelaySendQ, Tag=581226
9. [40000] (01/23 12:58:37.926):{0×1B08} [BIPP] Send data, Tag=581226
10. [40000] (01/23 12:58:40.551):{0×1B04} [BIPP] Received status DELIVERED, Tag=581226
11. [30097] (01/23 12:58:40.551):{0×1F20} {cat@cheelam.com} Message has been delivered to device, Tag=581226, EntryId=280645
12. [30066] (01/23 12:58:40.598):{0×1F20} Total Msgs Pending 0
13. [30247] (01/23 12:58:46.020):{0×1AFC} Server stats – Msgs: Forwarded 875559, Sent 47732, Pending 0, Expired 14, Filtered 4450

There are 13 transactions carried out by BES. The first transaction indicates that there is an external email arrived in the mailbox. The second through fifth transactions indicate that BES is trying to confirm the identity by providing a referencing ID, RefId. EntryId and RefId are closely related and the two must go hand-in-hand. I always think that RefId is BES’s equivalent to Outlook MAPI object EntryId implementation. Two of these are important in troubleshooting for locating specific user action with corresponding mailbox item.

The sixth line of transaction indicates that BES is updating the status of action after confirming the identity. During this time, if you open up BlackBerry Enterprise Manager you will see 1 message is pending for that particular user.

Once these two identities are set, BES will begin taking action by providing a tag for these set of transaction. Line seventh to eleventh are considered as one set of transaction by referring to Tag=581226. BES is trying to deliver the email and get confirmation from the device that indeed it has been received.

Line twelveth and thirteenth are basically indicating BES is now updating the status, the same information you will see in the BlackBerry Enterprise Manager.

Click to enlarge

Coming up next, Part III – Email Status change (read, unread etc.)

Useful Links

1. EntryID Property, look for Remarks section.

• http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa211865(office.11).aspx
• http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc842254.aspx

2. Message flow entries in the BlackBerry Enterprise Server debug log
3. For more details and advanced logging and troubleshooting, you may be interested in PDF download User Guide for Analysis, Monitoring, and Troubleshooting Tools
4. Log parsing - Log Parsing Script