SharePoint (and Project Server) Shenanigans

Issue :

Incoming emails to SharePoint are all configured properly and emails are being received in the server’s SMTP Drop folder but they stay there and are not picked up by SharePoint.

Troubleshooting :

Looking at ULS Logs the following error is showing :

E-mail cannot be delivered because site is over quota or locked for editing. Site URL: http://xxxx.

Researching :

A quick Google and it seem that CU April 2012 has raised this issue: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/george_bethanis/archive/2012/05/25/sps2010-cannot-send-incoming-emails-to-lists-libraries.aspx

SharePoint incoming email Fix :

Following the steps fixes the issue except for Nintex:

-> SharePoint Central Administration > Application Management > Configure quotas and locks > on the Site Quota Information section >  set a limit (i.e: 5000 MB) on this setting:  “Limit site storage to a maximum of:”  > and then press “OK”.

Nintex issue :

I now work a lot with Nintex workflow and one of the greatest feature in the product is the ability to approve a task via email response called “Lazy Approval”.

The issue with the above is that Nintex drops the Lazy Approval emails in to a HIDDEN library under the Central Administration, therefore we need to set a quota to the Central Admin site as well but as you will experience there no way to select the Central Administration Web app when setting Quota.

Nintex Lazy Approval Fix :

I found the fix on the Nintex connect forum here.

1) get the storagemaximumlevel for Central Administration using PowerShell :

$ca = get-spsite -identity http://sharepointserver:portnumber
$ca.quota.storagemaximumlevel

Result should be 00000 since no quota is usually set for Central Admin site.

2) set a maximum quota

$ca.quota.storagemaximumlevel=80000000

No IISRESET is required and email will leave SMTP DROP Folder to be treated by Nintex Lazy Approval in a few seconds once Timer Job restarts.

Conclusion :

Seems that either not many environment use Incoming Emails to Sharepoint libraries or not many have upgraded to April 2010 CU since there isn’t much articles about this, hopefully the next CU will fix this issue otherwise make sure you include this workaround in your Sharepoint and Nintex configuration.

[Update] April 2012 CU was removed and re-releaed however it still does not fix the incoming email, making this look like a definite move to disable it by default.