Verify MSMQ Installation

Ensure your client and server machines have the exact same Message Queuing configuration. Select the exact same Message Queue sub-components. If the server only has “Common” installed then the client must also only have “Common”.

Responder uses only private queues and therefore requires only the “Common” MSMQ components. Public queues are not used and therefore Active Directory sub-components are not necessary.

Check the configuration for our MSMQ Remoting Channel

The following registry key (for development purposes only) overrides the information specified in the remoting configuration: HKLM\SOFTWARE\Miner and Miner\Responder8\Channels\MSMQ\Client. Make sure the ComputerName attribute is specified correctly. See Configuring Responder for more information.

Verify Communication

Verify that the client machine can access the destination (server) machine. The best way to do this is to open a command prompt and start a telnet session:

telnet <machine|ip> 1801

Note: You can install Telnet from the Microsoft website.

If you fail to connect using Telnet then there is a communication issue. If you are in a clustered environment then you need to make sure you are addressing either the IP or Name cluster resource in the appropriate cluster group.
If the machine is multi-homed, which is common with server-class and clustered machines, then it is possible that MSMQ has bound to the wrong interface. See KB329492: A cluster node with two network cards does not receive messages for more information.

Check Outgoing Queues

The communication between client and server engages many queues. View the outgoing queues to determine where the communication is incorrect. Since two-way communication includes timeouts, do this immediately after opening Responder Explorer (within the timeout period).

Client Machine: Ensure there are no messages in the outgoing queues for the rxserver.request queue on the message router.
Message Router Machine (Cluster Group): Ensure there are no messages in the outgoing queues for the rxserver.service queue on the server machine.
Server Machine (Cluster Group): Ensure there are no messages in the outgoing queues for the [%DOMAIN%.%USER%].rxexplorer.response queue on the client machine.

This diagram displays the message queues that participate in our custom MSMQ remoting channel implementation. It is helpful to understand this when diagnosing problems - particularly when looking at the outgoing queues.