01-30-2010

Words of warning: Servers\Mail Users view in 8.5.1 Domino Directory has changed

Tags: 8.5.1 Lotus Domino 8.5 Directory
I recently ran into a nasty surprise in an agent I wrote ages ago that uses the Servers\Mail Users view in the Domino directory to find users per server, which performs some checks against the mail database.
The agent loops through the entries, using the NotesViewEntry.ColumnValues instead of accessing the underlying document, in the view which worked fine all the way up to Domino 8.5.0

After upgrading the Administration server to 8.5.1 the agent started reporting problems with the database owner, ACL etc.

Turned out that the Name column of the view has been changed from displaying the user name in Abbreviated format to 'Lastname, Firstname'.

So if you've ever used this view in any of your code, check to see if this change has consequences, and while you're at it also check for changes to any of the other views in the Domino directory that might have changed. I know I will

Oh and what did I learn from this? - When writing code that relies on information from a system database, add an additional view (with the prohibit design refresh ... property set of course)

01-06-2010

My experience sofar with Ubuntu Karmic 64 bit (Desktop & Server)

Tags: Lotus Domino Notes 8.5.1 VMWare Server 2.0.2 64 bit Linux Ubuntu Karmic
Sofar my ride with Karmic hasn't been all smooth.

I've upgraded my server from Ubuntu Server 8.04 (Hardy Heron) to 8.10 (Intrepid Ibex) and recently to 9.10 Server (Karmic) on 64 bit and encountered a few issues, and not just with Domino 8.5.1 - and yes I know this is not an IBM supported configuration

After the upgrade my Domino server came up without a problem but I noticed an error message from the full text indexer about not being able to find libstdc++.so.5
This library was replaced by the upgrade by libstdc++.so.6 - so I ended up pulling a copy from a previous release and adding that to /usr/lib32

Other than that sofar I haven't found any problems with Domino.

Daniel Nashed's SpamGeek also just continues to do it's job

I also have 64 bit VMWare Server 2.0.2 running on this server and after the upgrade the vmware modules refused to build, fortunately I found a fix here:

http://www.ubuntugeek.com/how-to-install-vmware-server-2-0-x-in-ubuntu-9-10-karmic.html

I have a Windows 2003 Server VMWare guest that started life as a physical box that I converted to a VM sometime last year that never had any problems but ever since the upgrade (and subsequent patch) has a tendency to die under high I/O loads. VMWare kills it (Worker#18| Caught signal 6).

After that, it was time for my laptop ...

01-05-2010

CA Process does not like admins with local mailfiles

Tags: Lotus Domino 8.5.1 CA Process
Ran into this one the other day while making a small change to my CA based certifiers:

Cannot locate user certificate. Make sure server contains your certificate for encryption


Turs out that when your location document is configured with your mail file location as Local, you will not be able to make any changes to notes and/or internet certifiers inside the CA Process.

See also KB #1168945

Why it requires the location of the mailfile to be 'On Server' instead of just checking the home server as configured in the location document (or the server you're actually administrating) is beyond me though.

12-23-2009

8.5.1 client with identity crisis?

Tags: Lotus Notes 8.5.1
When I started my Lotus Notes 8.5.1 Standard client this morning instead of showing me my workspace it didn't get beyond the empty framework:
A picture named M2
No errors, my task bar only showed one Lotus Notes item so it wasn't me double-clicking the quicklaunch icon (for a change)

So I was already getting annoyed even before finishing my first cup of tea.
When I pressed Alt-Tab to cycle to switch to an open commandline window I noticed it showed TWO Lotus Notes icons, one being the familiar prompt regarding one or more missed alarms.

To my surprise clicking the ok/yes button launched the basic client in a separate window.

Opening my mailbox from within the Basic client opens it up in ...

11-12-2009

Regression bug with HTML formatted email

Tags: 8.5 8.5.1 Lotus Notes SPR VNTR7UP3CD

Recently one of our customers contacted us with a support question regarding some HTML formatted emails.

R8.5.0 & 8.5.0 FP1 users can not forward or reply with history on some HTML formatted emails, like for example a reservation confirmation email sent by Hilton/DoubleTree hotels.

When accessing the email the messages loads correctly, but the status bar at the bottom of the screen shows 'Document attachment is invalid'.
Closing the message and opening it again will show a popup with the same message that the user needs to click on to be able to continue.

When trying to forward/reply with history, the error 'Cannot save bitmap to disk' appears when you click on Save as draft or Send/Send and File and you can not continue.

10-12-2009

Lotus Domino 8.5.1 Gold available for download at PWSW

Tags: Lotus Domino 8.5.1 partnerworld pwsw

Just noticed the gold version is available on PWSW, so I started downloading rightaway and atm I'm actually getting a decent download speed (I'm maxing out my ADSL )