Blog Archives
Hot Press: HCL Announces Dates for End of Support for older versions of Notes/Domino. v12.0.2 coming soon.
HCL just announced the dates that v9.0.x and v10.0.x of HCL Notes and Domino (Lotus Notes) will no longer be available for download and the date when HCL will no longer offer technical support for them.
Dec 1, 2022 – End of Marketing (EOM) – HCL will remove the software downloads from Flexnet. If you want a copy of this software, you have just 5 months to download it.
Jun 1, 2024 – End of Support – HCL will not provide customer support after this date and there will be no option for extended support on it. But seriously, why are you running a 12-year-old version of software for mission critical apps anyway?
While we’re talking about software versions, HCL continues the hot pace of prolific software development. You can see the progress of version 12.0.2 right here. It also shows progress on the maintenance release 11.0.1 FP6.
This is great news as it will push the laggards along on the Innovation Adoption curve. When organizations cling to an older version of software (imagine if you were still using Windows 8?), their employees develop an inaccurate, bad opinion of the software. That inaccurate publicity hurts the success of the software which feeds upon itself, causing the company leadership to think the problem is the software rather than their failed maintenance of it. So Kudos to HCL for driving customers to do the right thing and upgrade.
You can read more about their announcement at HCL’s blog.
You can read more about how versions are named, numbered, and supported here.
“It doesn’t matter, it’s in the past!”
HCL Notes & Domino V12.0.1 Beta 1: How to Download, How to Join the Forum, What’s New
The Beta 1 version of Notes and Domino V12.0.1 is now available on Flexnet. If you are licensed for Notes & Domino, this video shows how to download the beta. It also shows how to get to the HCL blog post with lots of details including what is new and how to participate in the beta forum with the developers.
Notes client doesn’t launch after upgrade: SOLVED
I like to share when I find a solution that hasn’t been previously documented in a technote. The short story is this: If you encounter the following error when trying to launch Notes: CWPA4003W: Failed to load application from url: nrpc:/….nsfname=…
CWPA4003W: Failed to load application from url: nrpc:/….nsfname=…
Then start by doing traditional maintenance on the local databases, especially names.nsf
The details:
You may encounter this error after a variety of events. In this particular case Notes gave this error and would not launch after running the installer to upgrade from 9.0.1 FP10 to 9.0.1 FP10 SHF315. The error persisted even after uninstalling and re-installing Notes — the first indication it might not be a problem with the software. Also, Notes would launch in basic mode or if you right click and select Run As Administrator. That misguided my troubleshooting into thinking it was an issue with Eclipse or Java. There is a similar issue reported in this technote:
https://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg1LO67058
Detailed steps to fix:
1. Edit the notes.ini and make sure it has the following line based on the version of Notes installed:
CREATE_R9_DATABASES=1
CREATE_R10_DATABASES=1
(If you have an earlier version, you have bigger problems and should be upgrading to the latest version, currently that is 10.0.1 FP3)
2. Launch a cmd prompt and change the path to the Notes program directory
3. enter these commands one at a time in this order:
nfixup names.nsf
nupdall names.nsf -R
ncompact names.nsf
(Note: it will prompt for the Notes password. When you type it in, nothing will appear to happen until you press enter.)
I highly recommend executing these commands on ALL of the local databases. To do so, just leave “names.nsf” out of the commands you enter.
IBM-Panagenda Partnership yields powerful FREE IBM Notes upgrade tool
Panagenda also has a free version of The software can be downloaded here:
Domino Mobile Apps for the iPad is Here!
A Notes client (sort of) for the iPad has just been released! This is the announcement. I’m looking forward to the next steps when they port this to the iPhone and Android phone. All the security, replication, workflow and offline functionality of Notes with the portability of a mobile device and no redundant develop to web-enable any apps. Nice job IBM and HCL.
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Why Use Domino & Notes for collaborating among teams: A Customer Testimonial
My recap of CollabSphere is coming soon. Meanwhile, my friend Bernd Gewehr is featured on IBM’s website right now, and he does a great job of explaining the benefit of using Notes for app development for his company.
Small companies do big things with Notes apps.
Learn more about what is coming in Domino V10 in just a few months: https://www.ibm.com/collaboration/ibm-domino
Some tips are worth revisiting each year: Holidays in Dom Dir and Inbox Cleanup
Some topics are worth revisiting every year. Here are two of my favorites:
How to create holidays in the Domino Directory for importing into calendars
You asked. IBM responds: Interim Fix for Domino to support SHA-2 and TLS fix for POODLE attack.
All the information you need is in these two technotes:
http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg21418982
http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg21687167
Watch for the fix to be posted on Fix Central soon. Then this can be marked Completed in Greenhouse and IdeaJam.net
Note that one of these will only be supported on Domino 9.0.1. The 8.5 code can’t support SHA-2 encryption.
What does this mean? This addresses the issue that web browsers will soon no longer support connecting to websites that use the older encryption due to its weaker algorithms that can be broken with today’s faster computers. So Domino servers using https will need this update to allow web browsers to be able to connect after they drop support for the old security.
Quick Tip: Fix for unexplainable common crashes of Lotus Notes 8.x with Eclipse
Lotus Notes Version 8.x introduced the Eclipse-based extension with many new features and functions possible. But along with that came a world of new opportunities for software failures. The introduction of the Fault Reports database made it easier to gather crash information, but still doesn’t provide any tools for fixing the issues or identifying the cause of many errors in the Eclipse configuration information that is stored in the \Workspace directory located in the Notes data directory. It could present a variety of errors from the client closing as soon as it is launched to crashing whenever the user tries to send an email with an attachment. The first step is to identify if the problem is related to Eclipse. An easy test for this is to launch the Notes client in basic mode. This can be done two ways:
1. Add this line to the notes.ini: UseBasicNotes=1
I prefer not to use this method since this is only being used temporarily.
2. The preferred method for this use is to edit the properties of the icon used to launch Notes and append ” -sa” (without the quotes) to the end of the command line that has notes.exe so it looks like this:
If you cannot reproduce the error while running in basic mode, the problem is probably due to an Eclipse configuration issue.
In such cases, the brute-force method of solving the problem would be to delete the \Workspace folder and cache.ndk and maybe even the bookmarks.nsf. This may work, but it also deletes many settings that have been customized for that client. A less drastic, but not publicly documented method is to launch the Notes client with parameters that will clear the Eclipse cache or reset the configuration.
1. Click the Windows Start button, type cmd and press enter. This will launch a command prompt.
2. Change the current path to the Notes Program directory.
3. Launch Notes using the following command:
> Notes -RPARAMS -clean
or to reset the configuration, Launch Notes using the following command:
> Notes -RPARAMS -resetconfig
Each of these commands has a specific impact on the Eclipse files. The full impact is not publicly documented, so you may want to make a backup of the \Workspace folder first and if you have access to IBM technical support, it is best to open a ticket with them before using these commands. But this is another tool to add to your Notes client repair kit.
For a related article describing an example of using the Fault Reports data to troubleshoot client crashes, check out my post titled: The Single biggest cause of Lotus Notes client crashes and how to avoid them
SmartCloud Tip #01 Using the Notes admin client to compliment the SmartCloud web admin screens
This is my first in a series of tips regarding SmartCloud Hybrid Notes migrations and administering SmartCloud Hybrid Notes environments that aren’t always obvious.
First, as a user, I will say that the more I use SmartCloud Notes, the more I like it. Yes, when doing administration tasks I keep bumping into walls that, as an experienced administrator, I wish weren’t there. But I have seen the problems that a bad or malicious administrator can reek on a system given the opportunity and I am thankful for the excessively tight security. After all, one of the biggest reasons to go to SmartCloud is so you don’t have to administer mail servers, right?
Tip #01 – How to use the Notes Administrator client to compliment the SmartCloud Web administration screens:
As usual, the system administrators are the last ones to get a UI that makes sense. No surprise since there is only 1 administrator for every few thousand end users. The SmartCloud Web Administration screens aren’t very efficient and can be downright frustrating to use at times, especially when you are accustomed to using the Notes Administrator client.
For example, let’s say you have a mixture of mail templates in use and you need to move everyone using one template to a different one. There is no way to see what template is applied to each mail file via the web admin interface. At this time it simply can’t be done. But you can use your Notes Admin client to find them. While the SmartCloud servers won’t show up in the list of servers in your domain and you can’t view the directory in SmartCloud to add those servers in bulk, from the pulldown menu select File – Open Server and enter the server name to gain limited access to the server. The SmartCloud servers will even appear in the Open Server dialog list if you have opened mail files on them already. Be sure to bookmark your SmartCloud servers in your favorites too, so you don’t have to go through this process every time.
Now that you have the server open, you can go to the Files tab and see more details on your users’ mail files including the templates applied. The directory structure they use in SmartCloud is designed to accommodate a multi-tenant environment. So you will want to know where to find your mail files. It’s not too hard because you can’t see any databases you shouldn’t have access to. The directory structure works like this: In the root there will be the directories Data0, Data1, Data2, Data3. You can ignore the Data0 directory as no mail files are in there. Each of these directories contain the following subdirectories:
12345678 (your customer ID) – location of the mail files for users that have this server designated as their mail server
lost+found – used for maintenance
s\12345678 – location of mail files where this server is the user’s secondary server in the cluster
While there aren’t many actions you can take here, it does make it easier to do tasks like open mail files for troubleshooting, view the database properties, see who is approaching their quota, etc.
Preparing for IBM Connect 2013 (Lotusphere) and another “Outlook can’t do that” moment
As I review my flight itinerary, I’m looking forward to the Alaska Air non-stop from Seattle to Orlando, fondly known as…The Disney Flight. No lie. See the photo.
This time there will be no missing B.A.L.D. due to missed connections, flight cancellations or delays because of a storm blanketing the center of the country. Wuhoo!
As I added my IBM Connect (Lotusphere) Conference travel plans to my IBM Lotus Notes calendar, Alaska Airlines graciously pointed out on their website yet another limitation of Outlook. They have a handy “Add to Calendar” feature. When you click it, it gives the option to add each flight to the calendar as a separate entry with the stipulation: “(not compatible with Outlook)”. See below. Just more proof that popularity does not equate to quality. In a way, I’m thankful. If everyone used IBM Lotus Notes, that would be one less advantage my clients had over their competition.
See Y’all in Orlando! If you’re going, tweet me @davehabz and let me know so we can meet up!
Click Add to Calendar
- Click Add to Calendar
Too bad Outlook users…
But if you use IBM Lotus Notes…
Import the entries so they are available when offline.
Voila’, individual entries for each flight.
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The Single biggest cause of Lotus Notes client crashes and how to avoid them
(For a related article, see my post titled Quick Tip: Fix for unexplainable common crashes of Lotus Notes 8.x with Eclipse )
While reviewing an environment with about 3000 users, I discovered an extremely high number of fault reports occurring. On a daily basis there were from 100 to 200 faults reported. Some users were crashing every single day. Clearly this points to a systemic problem, probably due to some software conflict or other configuration issue widely used within this organization. Yet for all these crashes, the users were not reporting any problems. While they weren’t reporting problems, this was likely to lead to bigger problems from file corruption if it wasn’t already. I needed to find the cause. One catch though: I had limited access to the computers or contact with the users. This can make troubleshooting very difficult.
The first step was to examine the data submitted in the Fault Reports database. Unfortunately, the crashes were not reporting much, if any, useful data, including only partial .NSD files. Fewer than 10% of the crashes even reported a version, but of those that did, they were all either Release 8.5.2 or 8.5.3 with various Fix Packs. While we were only about half way through an upgrade from 7.0.x to 8.5.3, none of the crashes reported a version of 7.x. If all the crashes are 8.5.x, then that makes the fault rate even worse; about 10% per day for fifteen hundred 8.5.x users! Yet no one was reporting any problems. Quite the mystery.
The next logical step would be to run Fault Analyzer against the Fault Reports database to look for trends in the fault reports and to examine whatever is available in the .NSD files for any clues. The .NSD files were mostly empty and Fault Analyzer proved useless because there wasn’t enough data reported in the fault reports. For those crashes that did report some data, examining them manually, I found a common thread among some of the crashes:
Host Name : LAPTOP1234
User Name : SYSTEM
Date : Thu Oct 11 10:33:24 2012
Windows Dir : C:\Windows
Arguments : “C:\Program Files (x86)\IBM\Lotus\Notes\nsd.exe” -dumpandkill -termstatus 1 -dlgopts showwait -wctpid 5292 -wctexitcode 1073807364 -panicdirect -crashpid 3940 -crashtid 516 -runtime 300 -ini “C:\Program Files (x86)\IBM\Lotus\Notes\notes.ini” -svcreq 128
NSD Version : 8.5.23.1132 (Release 8.5.2FP3)
OS Version : Windows/7 6.1 [64-bit] (Build 7601), PlatID=2, Service Pack 1 (8 Processors)
Running as 32-bit Windows application on 64-bit Windows
Build time : Mon Jul 11 03:15:18 2011
Latest file mod : Fri May 13 09:03:31 2011
Notes Version : (32-bit client)
ERROR (79): the directory () does not exist – (22) Invalid argument
ERROR (44): unable to open file ‘C:\Program Files (x86)\IBM\Lotus\Notes\Data\formats.ini’ – (2) No such file or directory
This is an odd error, but searching the web I did find others who reported a similar problem and they solved it by getting a copy of the formats.ini file from a good installation and adding it to their computer. Could it be that our customized installation kit was missing this file? If so, it would be a straightforward fix, though it would have to be applied to all computers already upgraded. However, an inspection of one of the computers that had been crashing revealed the file is right where it should be. This was a dead end.
Finally I was able to work with one user on the issue. She had been crashing several times a week for the past few months though she never noticed. The crash reports were time stamped fairly consistently at around 7:30 AM correlating with the time she came in to work. The user did not report any unusual behavior when she started her computer, though occasionally Lotus Notes did “take a long time to start”. So one morning I watched her go through her morning routine of starting up and logging in. There was nothing unusual. No crash report posted either. Time to do more trend analysis.
I created several views in the Fault Reports database trying to identify any other trends using different categorized sorts: by date, by user, by hour of the day. When categorized by the hour of day, the crashes revealed a trend. The majority of crashes were in the afternoon between 1:00 PM and 5:00 PM (hours 13 – 16).
Fault Reports by Hour of Day
I sorted this view further by user. From this I noticed that, while the crashes were scattered throughout the afternoon, for any given person they were usually crashing in the same hour almost every time. I re-sorted the view so it was first categorized by user and then by hour and added a column with the exact time of crash. Now I could see all the crashes for one person grouped together and categorized by hour. Then scanning through the users with very high crash counts, I found the final clue: One user crashed at precisely 5:00 PM every single day. This user was crashing at precisely 5:00 PM every day and the crashes were being submitted consistently at 8:02 AM the next day.
Crashes occurring at 5:00 PM daily
This person happened to be the receptionist. Her work hours are precisely from 8 to 5. Looking more closely at the other users I could see the crashes were typically occurring about 8 hours after the previous crash report was submitted by each person. It is important to note here that the crash report is reported (Creation date/time) at the next restart of Notes. In other words, Notes would crash at the end of their day and they didn’t restart Notes until the next morning.
I called the receptionist and asked how she shuts down her computer at the end of the day. I expected to hear her say she just hits the power button, but that was not the case. It turns out she clicks the X in the top right corner of Notes to close the window, then clicks Log Off on the Start menu immediately after. Apparently Notes 8.5.x takes longer to close than 7.x and it was not able to close before the OS dumped it from memory during shutdown, thus causing it to not close cleanly.
With a bit of user training, this problem has been resolved. They were told to give Notes an extra minute to shut down before logging out or just lock or hibernate the computer instead of logging off.
I think this is a flaw in the interaction between the OS and Notes, but until that is fixed, this is a clean, simple work-around. What are your ideas and experiences with this?
The Notes Guy in Seattle 