Exchange 2010 Setup of Mailbox role fails with the name reference is invalid error

• Applies to:

  Exchange Server 2010

Original KB number:   2479802

Symptoms

The install of the Mailbox role on an Exchange server will fail and the following is seen in the setup.log file:

This error is not retriable. Additional information: The name reference is invalid.
This may be caused by replication latency between Active Directory domain controllers.
Active directory response: 000020B5: AtrErr: DSID-03152392, #1:
 0: 000020B5: DSID-03152392, problem 1005 (CONSTRAINT_ATT_TYPE), data 0, Att 200f4 (homeMDB)".
[MM/DD/YYYY HH:MM:SS] [1] [ERROR] Active Directory operation failed on DC-Name.Domain.com. This error is not retriable. Additional information: The name reference is invalid.
This may be caused by replication latency between Active Directory domain controllers.
Active directory response: 000020B5: AtrErr: DSID-03152392, #1:
 0: 000020B5: DSID-03152392, problem 1005 (CONSTRAINT_ATT_TYPE), data 0, Att 200f4 (homeMDB)

Cause

This issue occurs when the value of the ConfigurationDomainController parameter and the value of the PreferredGlobalCatalog parameter are not equal. In this scenario, the Mailbox install fails because of the replication latency that occurs between the configured domain controllers and the preferred global catalog.

Note

The PreferredGlobalCatalog parameter is randomly selected by Exchange Setup and may be different each time setup is run. Consequently, in some situations, setup may choose more than one Domain Controller/Global Catalog (DC/GC) during setup and objects created during setup may not be present on another DC/GC due to AD replication latency.

Resolution

Option 1: Wait for AD Replication to complete, then run setup again and allow it to continue to completion.

Option 2: Run Setup from the shell with the /DomainController switch as listed in Use unattended mode in Exchange Setup.