One fix for Failed to update recipient returned an error -2147023286 from the Address List Service in Exchange 2007

Ran into the following today and appears the ‘ole Internet is littered with reasons for the possibility of it happening, none of which applied to me.  So, here’s my addition to that list… 🙂

I got this…

Failed to update recipient "rgnetwork.ca/US1/Victoria - CA1/Users/itgroove Test User". The following exception occurred: Exchange Server 2007 rgus1vmg01.rgnetwork.ca returned an error -2147023653 from the Address List Service..

And this…

Failed to update recipient "rgnetwork.ca/NoPolicy/admin-itgroove". The following exception occurred: Exchange Server 2007 rgus1vmg01.rgnetwork.ca returned an error -2147023286 from the Address List Service..

And it turned out that it was due to the fact I had used brackets (you know … “( )” …) in the Address List Name for a recipient policy I had in place (see below). I removed that, reapplied the recipient policy and voila!, it was much happier.  Not very friendly errors indeed…