Just recently I was working on adding a new SharePoint server into an existing farm and I was having all type of problems with the search service configuration screen and a bunch of other little things but after uninstalling and re-installing the SharePoint software I finally got all the service screens to appear correctly except that “Windows SharePoint Services Incoming E-mail” was activated.  This service is automatically activated when the server is added to the farm but I didn’t want it activated.  When I tried stopping the service I couldn’t for the life of me remember how to do it.  I knew it was easy but I just couldn’t remember and to make things worse I was getting the two errors below every minute.  This was driving me nuts because I couldn’t find anything on any of the search engines either but then I finally found it in central admin on the “Services on Server” page where I thought it was.  I thought that I had stopped it before on the “Services on Server” page but I couldn’t find it when the new server was active and then it dawned on me that I wasn’t seeing the “Central Administration” service either.  Then I decided to click the “Custom” server role and see what was listed there and presto the “Windows SharePoint Services Incoming E-Mail” and “Central Administration” services were listed with all the other services.  To be honest it only took me 15 minutes to figure this out but when you’re tired this seems to be forever.  I’m adding this to my blog as a note that way I don’t have to search for it and hopefully someone else might find it useful.

Event Type: Error
Event Source: Windows SharePoint Services 3
Event Category: E-Mail
Event ID: 6872
Date: 5/25/2008
Time: 9:16:22 AM
User: N/A
Computer:
Description:A critical error occurred while processing the incoming e-mail drop folder.

The error was: Value cannot be null.

Parameter name: path.

For more information, see Help and Support Center at

Event Type: Error
Event Source: Windows SharePoint Services 3
Event Category: Timer
Event ID: 6398
Date: 5/25/2008
Time: 9:16:22 AM
User: N/A
Computer:
Description:The Execute method of job definition Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.SPIncomingEmailJobDefinition (ID 15cb7ef8-cfa0-4d8e-9892-4deb1c69d0f7) threw an exception. More information is included below.