CodeTwo and Exchange 2013 SP1

This article is obsolete and may relate only to older versions of our software.

Problem:

You are observing one or more of the following misbehaviors on Exchange Server 2013 running Cumulative Update (CU) older than Cumulative Update 8:

To check your Exchange version, please consult the following article.

• With previously installed CodeTwo Exchange Rules family software, the MS Exchange Transport Service stopped working and does not start despite server reboot or manual start attempt after installation.
• the installer of CodeTwo Exchange Rules PRO or CodeTwo Exchange Rules 2013 fails to install CodeTwo Transport Agent.
• Manual agent installation from Exchange Management Shell returns an error:

  The TransportAgentFactory type "Agent.CAgentFactoryRouting" doesn't exist. The TransportAgentFactory type must be the Microsoft .NET class type of the transport agent factory.

• Event viewer log files reveal error events:

  Failed to create agent factory (...), Failed to create type 'Agent.CAgentFactoryRouting' from assembly (...)

Solution:

To solve the problem described above please install Cumulative Update 8 (or newer) for Exchange 2013.

According to the users comments under the initial Microsoft Service Pack release announcement the issue is caused by the Service Pack at its early stage and impacts Transport agents of other vendors as well. It was difficult for third parties to be prepared for this issue as it was only discovered a few days before the official SP1 release.

The problem lies with assembly redirection policies files being improperly formatted - they contain unsupported commenting style what makes them being unrecognized as valid XML and therefore ignored by Microsoft .NET. Multiple config files in Global Assembly Cache folder contain unwanted comments, however, only two of them have influence on CodeTwo software directly. 

​See also:

• Invalid agent assembly path error
• Transport Service does not start after installing CodeTwo Exchange Rules family software