Exchange server 2013 content filter rejecting all incoming messages as spam.

Question

Hello All,
Today out of the blue our Exchange server 2013 install started rejecting any inbound message as spam. It first started with only one user not being able to receive any mail because of this anomaly and
then after 12 or so hours all users were getting their mail rejected.
I currently had the threshold set to 5 on external messages only. Internal is disabled.
I have tried setting the threshold to 8 and 9, and rebooted the server after restarting
all services just to make sure everything reset. Even dished out a IISRESET just in case. Whatever I tried still does not work.
The install is a stand alone server facing the outside world (no edge server) living
in a 2 domain controller environment with a share point farm thrown in (ESXI5.5 environment)
Everything works just fine and dandy if I disable the content filter all together. Not seeing anything in the application logs out of the ordinary. Everything was working great and the same settings I used on this server worked well for a totally different
server that runs just fine.
Any ideas?
fr0stsp1re

Answer 1

RunspaceId                            : 87157b62-a061-436b-8fb9-dab446be3473
Name                                  : ContentFilterConfig
RejectionResponse                     : Message rejected as spam by Content Filtering.
OutlookEmailPostmarkValidationEnabled : True
BypassedRecipients                    : {}
QuarantineMailbox                     :
SCLRejectThreshold                    : 6
SCLRejectEnabled                      : False
SCLDeleteThreshold                    : 9
SCLDeleteEnabled                      : False
SCLQuarantineThreshold                : 9
SCLQuarantineEnabled                  : False
BypassedSenders                       : {}
BypassedSenderDomains                 : {}
Enabled                               : False
ExternalMailEnabled                   : True
InternalMailEnabled                   : False
AdminDisplayName                      :
ExchangeVersion                       : 0.1 (8.0.535.0)
DistinguishedName                     : CN=ContentFilterConfig,CN=Message Hygiene,CN=Transport Settings,CN=Smith And
                                        Smith,CN=Microsoft
                                        Exchange,CN=Services,CN=Configuration,DC=XXXXXXXXXXX,DC=com
Identity                              : ContentFilterConfig
Guid                                  : 8f86e0b6-da37-42d3-b7cd-b9635b7db271
ObjectCategory                        : XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX/Configuration/Schema/ms-Exch-Message-Hygiene-Conten
                                        t-Filter-Config
ObjectClass                           : {top, msExchAgent, msExchMessageHygieneContentFilterConfig}
WhenChanged                           : 5/28/2014 12:15:21 PM
WhenCreated                           : 5/1/2014 4:17:55 PM
WhenChangedUTC                        : 5/28/2014 7:15:21 PM
WhenCreatedUTC                        : 5/1/2014 11:17:55 PM
OrganizationId                        :
OriginatingServer                     : XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
IsValid                               : True
ObjectState                           : Unchanged
 This is what it is set at now. Completely disabled. It worked fine for quite some time filtering out spam pretty nicely then one day everyone's mail was being rejected as spam by the content filtering agent. I know of someone else who also had this
issue except their box was running 2008R2 with EX2007. They too disabled the content filter as it was giving them too many problems with mail being rejected.
fr0stsp1re