Moving local mailboxes from Exchange 2016 to 2019 completes error free but doesn't move anything

[D_Greg_Scott]

Hi - 

I am probably doing something dumb. I want to move one mailbox from my Exchange 2016 server to my 2019 server. Same domain, just a server migration. From the EAC, I select the mailbox I want and start the batch job. A few minutes later, it notifies me it's complete. But total, synced, finalized, and failed counts are all 0. 

I also tried it in Powershell:
New-MoveRequest -identity 'myuser@mydomain.com' -TargetDatabase "Mailbox Database 0541931413" -BatchName "Move myuser 2021-1101 powershell"

This also completed with no errors, but did not move anything.

The name of the 2016 database is "Mailbox Database 1681849461."
The name of the 2019 database is "Mailbox Database 0541931413."

Those zeroes made me suspicious, and so I looked at the raw edb files in

C:\Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange Server\V15\Mailbox\Mailbox Database 0541931413 on my 2019 server, and

C:\Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange Server\V15\Mailbox\Mailbox Database 1681849461 on my 2016 server. 

The 2019 one is still small, while the 2016 is around 8 GB. So the stuff isn't moving.

I checked and double-checked and checked again. I'm specifying my 2019 database for the target. Something else is going on to not allow those mailboxes to move.

How do I get closer to what's going on?

thanks

- Greg Scott

[#2]

3 1/2 months and 60 view later and still no progress. This is a Windows 2016 domain. I wonder if it will work better with a 2019 domain. The problem is maddening because I'm not able to find any footprints.

[#3 · Accepted solution]

Looks like I stumbled across an answer. The problem goes back to 2017 when I moved all my mailboxes from Exchange 2013 to Exchange 2016. The completed move requests were still there. After I deleted the completed move requests, mailbox moves started working as expected. I wonder if that's documented anywhere.

If you want to move your mailboxes, make sure you delete the move requests from the last time you moved your mailboxes.

[#4]

Thank you so much for documenting this. I had the same issue and was pulling my hair out. Would have never thought to just delete the old finished jobs. Karma will reward you.