Category: Lotus Notes

  • Errors in week numbering – Lotus 8.*

    In migrating many of our users to Lotus Notes 8, we have recently found that some of them have experienced problems with week numbering, as 2009 has 53 weeks. Week number 53 is shown as week 1. This error carries over to 2010, meaning that week 1 is shown as week 2, and so on. Users using Lotus Notes 6.* and 7.* are not experiencing the problem.
     
    This is apparently caused by a setting in the operating system, but can be fixed in Lotus Notes. Here’s how:
      (more…)

  • Signature is not autoinserted in Notes 8.0.2

    I had a user call in recently, complaining that, even though she’d defined a signature to be added automatically. She got no error message, and had not changed anything about her setup.
     
    Though she hadn’t changed anything, a change had been made. All the mailfiles’ design (for those who ran version 8.*) had been upgraded to version 8.5.1. As it turned out, there was a bug in that design, meaning that signature settings did not work for people running client 8.0.2.
     
    The solution here is simple, and can be one out of two; either downgrade the mailfile design to version 8.0.2, or upgrade the client to version 8.5.1.

  • Resolving "Context toolbar not found. Bookmark design needs update"

    A colleague of mine asked me about an error message a user of his got while in Lotus Notes. The error message stated that
     
    Context toolbar not found. Bookmark design needs update.
     
    The solution is pretty straight forward, and even indicated by the error message. By deleting the file called Bookmark.nsf and restarting Notes, Notes creates a new Bookmark.nsf file which solved the problem.

  • Notes hogs resources when logged on to Sametime

    A user called in a case, telling us that when she was using Lotus Notes, her computer would run much slower, and the process nlnotes.exe would take up most of the available CPU capacity. Thinking that the problem lay in the fact that she had Notes installed to her server share, we first installed Notes locally, to see if that solved the problem. It didn’t.
     
    Still thinking that the problem lay with all of Lotus Notes, I tried maximising the Notes window, as one of our Notes experts had suggested that might help. Unfortunately it didn’t, although to begin with it seemed to. The user reported that all was fine until she logged into Sametime. Consulting with the Notes expert again, it transpired that this is a known issue in the version she was running 6.5.4, which was resolved in version 6.5.6.
     
    An upgrade later, all was well again.

  • Resolving "The linked document cannot be found in the view" errors

    As I have mentioned countless times before, Lotus Notes’ error messages are not always the easiest to understand. So, too with this one. A user called me over, complaining that she’d get this error whenever she opened any documents in her own mailfile.
     
    After a lot of trial and error, I found that the error lay with the mailfile design. However, replacing it was not enough; you actually have to replace it with a different design, close the mailfile, open ot, then replace it with the correct one again.

  • Lotus Notes: Collection Container is NULL

    I had a user call in telling me she was getting a bizarre error message when trying to send an email in Lotus Notes. The error message said “Collection Container is NULL”.
     
    As informative as many of Lotus Notes’ error messages, this one, at least was displayed in English. Believe me, trying to translate error messages back from Norwegian to English is not as simple as it may sound…
     
    Browsing the web, I found other people who had had the same problem, related to Category fields, as well as ODBC connections. The suggested solution was as simple as it was effective; restart Lotus Notes.

  • Resolve "Illegal Circular USE:DocumentConversions" errors

    After upgrading a user to Notes 6.5.4, she got an error saying “Illegal Circular USE:DocumentConversions” when opening her mailfile. She reported that she’d get this problem when opening folders.
     
    The key to solving this problem, is knowing that the user has been upgraded from Notes version 5 to Notes version 6.5.4. From one version of Notes to the next, new functionality is implemented using design changes to the mailfile. When a user upgrades from one version to the next, the design need to be upgraded as well.
     
    If, after replacing the design, the problem still occurs, you should try refreshing it as well. This has solved the problem for me a couple of times.

  • Decrypting Lotus Notes’ NSD crash logs.

    When Lotus Notes crashes, it usually also creates a crash log. Much like the tapes from the black box of an airplane, the crash log can yield veluable information, provided you can read it. The crash logs are named in a very specific way, such as nsd_W32I_XP-UNME_2009_03_11@08_35_17.log, easily allowing us to find the log we need.
     
    The problem is that the logs are, mildly put, overfilled with information, logging all of the files Notes uses, the processes running at the time of the crash and so on. These files are raw text data, containing some 30000+ lines of information, taking up roughly 2MB of space.
     
    For years, Notes consultants have clamored for a tool to ease the reading of these files; and IBM has seen fit to acquiesce; they have published the Lotus Notes Diagnostic Tool.
     
    The Lotus Notes Diagnostic Tool, found here, analyses the file, and tells you what you need to know, along with links to knowledge base articles. You still have to decide upon a plan of action yourself, but at least now you don’t have to search some 30000+ lines of error logs to find what the error was…

  • Notes crashes when you delete a folder using the delete key

    I’ve been having a problem lately while doing some housekeeping in my mail file; Notes would crash whenever I’d delete a folder using the delete key instead of right-clicking the folder and selecting “Remove Folder”. Each crash would result in a 2MB-sized crash log.
     
    I shipped the crash log off to one of our senior Notes consultants, who returned the following extract to me:
     
    ############################################################
    ### thread 1/19: [ NLNOTES: 0b88: 01d8] FATAL THREAD (Panic)
    ### FP=0013c74c, PC=7c90eb94, SP=0013c6e8
    ### stkbase=00140000, total stksize=212992, used stksize=14616
    ### EAX=0x02d40000, EBX=0x00000000, ECX=0x00001000, EDX=0x7c90eb94
    ### ESI=0x000004a0, EDI=0x00000000, CS=0x0000001b, SS=0x00000023
    ### DS=0x00000023, ES=0x00000023, FS=0x0000003b, GS=0x00000000 Flags=0x00000297
    ############################################################

     
    What this extract is telling us, is that NLNOTES.EXE is encountering a fatal error. The solution? Reinstall Lotus Notes.

  • Lotus Notes: "You are not authorized to access this database"

    The error message “You are not authorized to access this database” is caused by a lack of rights set in Notes’ ACL, Access Control List. When this error message is displayed, the administrator of the ACL will have to change the permissions of the user in question.

  • Lotus Notes: "type mismatch on external name"

    The company I’m working from is currently migrating from Notes 6 to Notes 8. As I’ve said earlier, I’ve been using the latter for some time, and am mostly happy that I am.
     
    A service call I got the other day had a user reporting that she’d get a “Type mismatch on external name…” when opening her calendar afet she’d upgraded to Notes 8. Not the most informative of errors, but that is the way of Notes, it seems.
     
    One of the interesting things about upgrading from one version of Notes to another is that with a new version of Notes, comes a new design for the mailfile. I encountered it with the upgrade from Notes 5 to Notes 6, though there, the issue was mostly related to layout and design.
     
    The solution, then, to this problem is to upgrade the mailfile design.