Exchange troubleshooting: The Exchange Active Directory Provider couldn't find an available domain controller in the domain

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Issue

The Exchange Active Directory Provider couldn't find an available domain controller in the domain

Symptom

Unable to remove the arbitration Mailbox from exchange database. Below error shows up while trying to remove arbitration mailbox whose system object is located in the root domain

The Exchange Active Directory Provider couldn't find an available domain controller in the domain contoso.com

Cause

Below command shows that domain controller in root domain are static excluded  

Get-ExchangeServer |fl

StaticDomainControllers         : {}

StaticGlobalCatalogs            : {}

StaticConfigDomainController    :

StaticExcludedDomainControllers : {dc1.contoso.com}

Resolution

  1. Set the static excluded domain controller to $null
  2. Rerun the command to remove arbitration mailbox
Set-ExchangeServer exch1 -StaticExcludedDomainControllers $null