After a failed move request, the mailbox is still marked is being moved and cannot be removed again

Description

After a failed move request, sometimes (for unknown reason) the mailbox is still marked is being moved and cannot be removed again... the mailbox is shown with a green icon on the EMC (Exchange Management Console), however it cannot be seen on the "Move Request" section or with Get-MoveRequest command and cannot be cleared with the Remove-MoveRequest command.

In my example, the mailbox moved has failed due to too many bad items on the source mailbox (Fatal error TooManyBadItemsPermanentException has occurred) but I guess it could happen with some other errors too.

Solution

1. Open ADSIEDIT and navigate to the OU where your broken user account is stored.
2. Locate the user account, right-click on it and then choose "Properties".
3. Click on the "Filter" button and make sure "Show only attributes that have values" is checked.
4. Scroll down the attributes and search for an entry called "msExchMailboxMoveRemoteHostName".
5. Click on the "Edit" button.
6. Click on the "Clear" button.
7. Click the "OK" button.

Affected software:

Microsoft Exchange 2010
Microsoft Exchange 2010 SP1
Office 365 RTM




Comments:

Comment #1 from Wayneau [Username: Guest] at 21/03/2012 03:38
Thankyou, very helpful. This seemed to fix itself after a while, but it was frustrating.
Comment #2 from VeryThankfulPerson [Username: Guest] at 01/02/2013 02:17
Nice simple fix....but was pulling my hair out for a good few hours before I came across this post. Thanks again.
Comment #3 from elinus [Username: Guest] at 08/05/2013 18:33
Thank you so much. You rock!!
For our case in Exchange 2013, the error that saying mailbox is already being moved to Exchange 2013 database.

What I did was clear value in clear msExchMailboxMoveFlag and
msExchMailboxMoveStatus

Really appreciate for your post.
Comment #4 from Edu [Username: Guest] at 21/07/2013 22:09
Thank You!!!!
Comment #5 from pan [Username: Guest] at 16/09/2013 09:12
Thanks.. Really Helpful..
Comment #6 from TFH [Username: Guest] at 23/04/2014 15:23
This saved my bacon on a 2010 -> 2013 move. I followed the modified directions from "elinus" and all was well.

Thanks to both of you!
Comment #7 from Jorge [Username: Guest] at 04/07/2014 21:56
Thanks. This really helped
Comment #8 from Ashwin [Username: Guest] at 04/09/2014 03:02
Thanks. This really helped
Comment #9 from Guest [Username: Guest] at 02/10/2014 18:13
Our Exchange Guru Partner was unwilling to reveal the trick, thanks Man.
Comment #10 from DFragmentor [Username: Guest] at 31/10/2014 23:54
Finally found a solution! Thank you!
Comment #11 from Kparish [Username: Guest] at 07/12/2014 23:23
Thank you!!, Worked for me. I had 2 failed mailbox migrations that I spent hours looking for a solution. Remove-Migrationbatch and Remove-MigrationUser both failed for me until I found this. I followed elinus directions for a Exchange 2007 > 2013 migration.
Comment #12 from the dude [Username: Guest] at 27/01/2015 19:12
I had a mailbox that would not move from Exchange 2007 > 2013. In my case the msExchMailboxMoveRemoteHostName attribute was already clear, but most of the other "msExchMailboxMove.." attributes were populated. After comparing with an account that hadn't yet been moved, I cleared all of the msExchMailboxMove... vaulues and tried the move again with success.
Comment #13 from Mats [Username: Guest] at 28/01/2015 11:50
Anyone know how to do this in Exchange 2007 environment?
I got a mailbox that user cannot access and I cannot move it to another mailbox database since it is locked since being in move progress?
Comment #14 from Guest [Username: Guest] at 12/02/2015 14:57
Thanks. This really helped
Comment #15 from ZeroRam [Username: Guest] at 28/02/2015 18:11
Such a simple fix! But without your knowledge I was struggling for hours to solve the issue, Thanks
Comment #16 from Guest [Username: Guest] at 19/03/2015 19:11
Thanks for great solution!!
But as per observation no need to go to ADSIEDIT, you can do it from normal AD also as it worked for me from normal AD.
Thanks.
Comment #17 from Danish [Username: Guest] at 27/06/2015 17:10
how can i remove bulk remove request in one go ?? it will taking time one by one..
Comment #18 from mahmud [Username: Guest] at 16/07/2015 21:03
i have over 400 users to deal with any bulk edit
Comment #19 from Juan Dominguez [Username: Guest] at 15/09/2015 23:27
Gracias, este problema lo tenia de hace mucho tiempo y con esto lo pude solucionar.
Comment #20 from Ponz [Username: Guest] at 21/01/2016 04:34
To clear a stuck move request you need to use ADSIedit to clear the attributes msExchMailboxMoveSourceMDBLink, msExchMailboxMoveTargetMDBLink, msExchMailboxMoveFlags, and msExchMailboxMoveStatus from the user's account
Comment #21 from You are the man [Username: Guest] at 27/01/2016 18:12
I couldn't find solution to this. Checked Atributes of account but with so many how can you find the name on account. Thanks
Comment #22 from Alex [Username: Guest] at 27/08/2016 12:35
YES! This really helps - also while moving from Exchange 2013 to Office 365.

The error message was the following:
Error: MigrationPermanentException: The onboarding move could not be created because user ‎'xxxx‎' is already being moved. --> The onboarding move could not be created because user ‎'xxxx‎' is already being moved. 

Just cleared the attribute on-premise, resync with AADSync and create a new MigrationBatch.

thx.
Comment #23 from Daniel Röllin [Username: Guest] at 28/12/2016 12:40
Super! Thank you!
Comment #24 from Ravi Kumar [Username: Guest] at 10/02/2019 06:31
Thank you it worked, clearing all the move request attributes in adsiedit helped me.
Comment #20 from Ponz helped me..
Comment #25 from Nagaraj [Username: Guest] at 04/05/2019 12:43
I have deleted the Old Migration batches on Exchange server 2016. Now cleared all msexchmailboxmove related atributes in AD server. Now exchange to Office 365 mailbox migration is working fine.

Thanks for your help to fix this issue


Add new comment
Name:
Anti-Bots verification code (just write 1234):