RPC error -2147220992 with Start-ManagedFolderAssistant on Exchange Online mailboxes

Modified on Fri, 22 Nov at 8:50 PM

Microsoft Exchange Online Archiving is a cloud-based, enterprise-class archiving solution from Microsoft 365 for organizations that have deployed Microsoft Exchange Server 2019, Microsoft Exchange Server 2016, Microsoft Exchange Server 2013, or subscribe to select Exchange Online or Microsoft 365 plans. Exchange Online Archiving helps organizations meet archiving, compliance, regulatory, and Microsoft Purview eDiscovery challenges.


As a Microsoft online service, Exchange Online Archiving was designed to help meet the need for strong security, reliability, and user productivity


When you turn on the "Archive" feature on Exchange Online mailboxes, the estimated time for information from the primary mailbox to move to the archive mailbox can take 24-72 hours, however, it is possible to speed up the process by running the following command in PowerShell

PS C:\>Start-ManagedFolderAssistant -Identity "adeckard@contoso.com"

Sometimes an error like the one shown below may occur:


The call to Mailbox Assistants Service on server: 'whatever.prod.outlook.com' failed. Error from RPC is -2147220992.


To solve this problem we can use the following commands to start the archiving process.

PS C:\>Get-MailboxLocation –User adeckard@contoso.com | fl MailboxGuid,MailboxLocationType

If you have archiving enabled, this will return two GUIDs, one for the primary mailboxes and one for the primary archive.


Take the GUID from the primary mailbox and use it like this:

PS C:\>Start-ManagedFolderAssistant -Identity <GUID>

This will help us to start the process without any problems.


As always, if you need additional help, do not hesitate to contact our technical support.



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