Email Retention Policy Editing and Deletion Mechanism is Broken and Unpredictable - Purview

1. Immediate fixes
Run the force policy application command:
powershell
# Enforce the policy immediately for all users
Get-Mailbox | Start-ManagedFolderAssistant
# Execute on a single problem user
Start-ManagedFolderAssistant -Identity “email address removed for privacy reasons”
2. 3 configurations that must be checked
Unpause reservations:
powershell
Set-Mailbox -Identity “email address removed for privacy reasons” -RetentionHoldEnabled $false
Verify the policy assignment:
powershell
Get-Mailbox “email address removed for privacy reasons” | Select RetentionPolicy
Check the policy priority:
powershell
Get-RetentionPolicy | Sort-Object Priority | ft Name,Priority
3. Emergency recovery of deleted emails
powershell
# Recover emails deleted by policy within 7 days.
Search-Mailbox -Identity “email address removed for privacy reasons” -SearchQuery 'kind:deleteditems' -TargetMailbox “email address removed for privacy reasons” -TargetFolder “Recovered_ Items” -DeleteContent
4. Service status check
powershell
# Confirm the status of background services
Get-Service MSExchangeMailboxAssistants | Select Status,StartType