[Solved] Object couldn’t be found on the primary domain

Summary: Exporting from Exchange Server to PST, I would guess it is something that every Administrator on a weekly or monthly basis would come across, depending on the request being a leaver or to recover an old or disconnected mailbox.

When exporting to PST, you may encounter an issue when using the New- Mailbox Export Request PowerShell cmdlet as described below.

New-MailboxExportRequest ?Mailbox ?test1? ?FilePath   New-MailboxExportRequest ?Mailbox ?test1? ?FilePath  ?\\fileserver\psts\test1.pst?  

Following the execution of the command, the below error will be prompted.

The operation couldn't be performed because object 'test1' couldn't be found on 'domain.lan'. + CategoryInfo : NotSpecified: (0:Int32) [New-MailboxExportRequest], ManagementObjectNotFoundException + FullyQualifiedErrorId :  44ACBC3C,Microsoft.Exchange.Management.RecipientTasks.NewMailboxExpo rtRequest 

One must try to get the information from the error, but firstly, we must make sure of Prerequisites for exporting from Exchange Server to PST. If you have Exchange Server 2010 or 2013, make sure that the latest service pack along with all the critical patches are installed.

TIP: You can avoid such errors and issues by using an EDB to PST converter software, such as Stellar Converter for EDB. The software helps you directly export mailboxes from an offline or online Exchange database (EDB) file to Outlook importable PST format without using any complex PowerShell command.

Secondly, you might look that the username you are executing the command is part of the Exchange administrators group and that the destination location has Exchange Trust Subsystem with full control on the share and folder.

Looking at the above error, it says that username was not found in the domain controller. First of all, make sure that the user is not deleted or disabled. This can be checked via the Active Directory Users and Computers on you domain controller. Make sure that the FQDN of your domain controller is reachable from the server you are exporting from

Another thing to check is that if you are exporting from a root domain controller and the users being under a child domain controller. For example, you have domain.lan and then you have split your Active Directory depending on the territory like emea.domain.lan or us.domain.lan. In this case, you would need to make sure that your root domain controller is reachable from the Exchange Server.

Another thing to take in consideration is that if your users are on the child domain controller and the email is on the root domain controller, then Exchange will have some issues with the location of the user. Although both domain controllers are in the same forest, you might end up with some issues when the New-MailboxExporRequest cmdlet looks up the user to export.

Although the user is created and located in the same forest, it?s not in the main Active Directory which in this example it?s not in the domain.lan but in the us.domain.lan. By default, if the Exchange Server is installed under domain.lan, the export script will not find the user.

In this case, you need to make sure to include the domain controller in the export script of your server so that you specify where the script should look for the user.

For this we will need to add the ?DomainController to the script, as below:

New-MailboxExportRequest ?Mailbox ?test1? ?FilePath ?\\fileserver\psts\test1.pst? ?DomainController ?us.domain.lan? 

The command will export the mailbox from the root domain where the Exchange Server is located, but it will make the user lookup from the specified domain controller.

This, of course, would come in handy if you have one export, but when having to script or export from various locations it might be a bit of a hassle.

Trying a specialized software application such as Stellar Converter for EDB, You found this process becomes easy and effortless.

The UI of EDB to PST Converter software was very easy to use and there is a sufficient number of filters and search criteria. The application can be used from any computer and without any high requirements for processing of the export to PST.

The application – apart from being a great alternative to use scripts and other processes to export mailboxes from any Exchange Server to PST files or other formats – is a great tool if you are migrating to Office, as the application can be used to export from Exchange directly to the user?s mailbox to Office 365.

Take help from reference & recommend Stellar Converter for EDB.

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