There are problem with lotus notes or lotus domino that we have to deal with it every day. Lotus notes is a good software, but still it have some bugs and problems that we have to deal with it. Specially when users start to compare it with other email client, like MS Outlook.
Recently, few of the users complains about problem when they try to “reply to all” certain emails, the email addresses somehow changed into something else, that cause problem when sending the email.
This is the screen capture of the emais, that the email addresses has changed.
Problem is, for some email we can reproduce the problem but for some emails we can’t, and this problem not happen to everyone that received the same email.
So, when user A and user B received the same email, maybe only user A that having the problem, while user B do not have the same problem.
If you have the same problem and have the solutions, please let me know by comments with this post.
Popularity: 1% [?]
How to Safely Delete Lotus Domino Transaction Log File
Transaction Log is a must have feature in Lotus Domino. If configured correctly, it’s almost speed up the whole Lotus Domino process. You can read more about Lotus Domino Transaction Log in here.
If you enable the feature, and you should, than you need to have a proper backup system that support the transaction log. Without the proper backup system that support transaction log, the disk will filled up by the transaction log files. The backup system will backup the transaction log files and then delete them, thus will free up space in your hard disk.
But, what happen if the backup system somehow not backup thing properly? What happen if the backup system do not backup the transaction log files and do not delete them? What should we do?
Recently, I had the same problem. Somehow my backup software did not delete the transaction log file after backup. My raid 1 transaction log disk was almost full, and need to free up some space quickly, before it crashed.
The first rule is you should not delete the transaction log manually, it will crashed the Lotus Domino server, believe me, I tried.
This is the workaround.
You can disable the transaction log, restart the server, enable the transaction log again, and then restart the server again. The minus point is, after you re-enable the transaction log, the Lotus Domino will do some database fixup on all of your databases in the server, it may take hours or even days.
Or you can,
- Change the transaction log from archival style to circular style
- Restart the server. It will safely delete the old transaction log files, and than it will create around 4 GB of transaction log files.
- Change it again to archival style
- Restart again, it will delete the transaction log and than again re-create the transaction log files again.
With this method, you can safe the time for database fixup.
Last, always do it in your own risk. It works in my Lotus Domino environment:
- Windows server 2003 x64,
- Lotus Domino 8.5.2 FP2 x64
And full backup will never hurt. 
Popularity: 1% [?]
How to speed up Lotus Notes client 8.5x
The first time I migrated MS Outlook to Lotus Notes, most users complain about the speed, and they said that MS Outlook is faster in any operations when compare to Lotus Notes.
I had to agreed with them.
I had to live with it, and thought that because it just they way it is, because Lotus Notes is not only an email client, but also a collaborations tool, that why it is slower compare to MS Outlook.
But I was wrong.
When I brought this up to IBM support, they came with a suggestion that I modified a file to increase the performance of Lotus Notes. And they were correct, with it Lotus Notes performance is a faster than before.
These are the steps:
- Close lotus notes.
- Open the folder/directory where you install lotus notes client, in my case c:\lotus\notes
- Find the file “\Lotus\Notes\framework\rcp\deploy\jvm.properties” and edit.
- Within the file, find the line “vmarg.Xmx=-Xmx256m” and change it into “vmarg.Xmx=-Xmx512m”
- Within the file, find the line “vmarg.Xms=-Xms48m” and change it into “vmarg.Xms=-Xms96m”
- Save the file.
Now, try to run Lotus Notes and see the differences. You can also play the setting, depend on your work load and your RAM. If you have more than 2 GB ram, you can try to increase the settings to:
vmarg.Xmx=-Xmx1024m
vmarg.Xms=-Xms256m
This improvement not only affects windows client, but also Linux or maybe Macs.
Please note that, if you apply the fix pack, the setting will be restores, so you need to re-edit it again.
Added: 2011-09-26
This also come from IBM support
If you feel that you have a network problem while using Windows Vista or Windows 7, you can follow this suggestion.
Run this command (without the quotes) from command prompt from Windows vista or Windows 7, make sure you run it as administrator.
“netsh interface tcp set global autotuninglevel=disabled ”
This command will disable the windows network auto tunning, see here
And better to apply the latest fix pacth, the latest fix pacth as I’m writing this post for Lotus notes 8.5.2 is FP3.
Popularity: 5% [?]
About Lotus Domino Transaction Log
One of the feature of Lotus Domino that I can’t live without (as Lotus Domino administrator) is Transaction Log. Transaction Log help me a lot when the server crash (very rarely) and backup time.
Without the transaction log, when the server crash, it will take hours for the server to recovery. It will check every databases one at a time and try to check and fix if it found any problem. And when the database if being fix, the user can’t access it. If the database is big, more than 10 GB, it will take hours to complete it.
With transaction log, after the server crash, the server will ready in less than 15 minutes.
Without the transaction log, the backup procedure will become a problem. In my case the total databases size is more that 1 TB, and it will take almost 24 hours to complete the full backup. And it’s almost impossible to me to run full backup everyday.
With the transaction log, I only to run the full backup every week, and I only need to backup the transaction log for daily backup. Yes the full backup will take up to 24 hours for 1 TB data, for for daily backup, it take less than 1 hour backup.
So, if you have a medium size or large lotus domino server, I highly recommend that you to run it with transaction log enable.
Before that, these are a few tips.
- Use the fastest and dedicated hard drive that you can use for transaction log. I’m using IBM SAS drive with 15000 RPM, and that still too slow to me.
- Use raid 1 for transaction log, it recommended by IBM. So if one drive is failed, you still have one to run the transaction log.
- Backup, backup, backup. Transaction log rely on good backup that support transaction log, it will only clear up the old TXN files after the backup is complete. Without a good backup, your hard drive will filled up by the TXN files.
- If possible, use the latest Lotus Domino version. I have problem with Lotus Domino 8.5.2 FP1 that crash because the size of the transaction log, even the hard disk still have many free space. After consult with IBM support, they suggested me to upgrade the fixed pacth to FP2, after that the problem is gone.
Popularity: 3% [?]
Recent Contacts, the goods and the bads
Personally, I like the new feature of lotus notes 8, Recent Contacts. Where as default, it will automatically added any names (or email addresses) to Recent Contacts, where than user can use it to look up email address. Later, names in the Recent Contacts can be moved to Contacts if you like.
For me, it saves time. I do not have to add manually the sender to my contacts, and it only able to add sender, not all people in the To or CC. Now, with Recent Contacts, all the To and CC names (or email addresses) will automatically added to my Recent Contacts list, and saves a lot of time.
But, there are users who do not like this feature, specially users who like to have their contacts clean and manage able, they only want to add names to their contacts only if it important, while Recent Contacts will automatically add all of them.
Luckily, Recent Contacts have many options, you can choose it in Contacts preferences.
You can choose that Recent Contacts DO NOT automatically added:
- Any names to Recent Contacts, for short to disable the Recent Contacts feature.
- CC and BCC names to Recent Contacts, so it only add names in the TO field.
- Names from emails that I receive (Only add names from email that I send), that already explain it.
So, for users who really hate this feature, they can simply disable it.
One of the annoying thing about this feature, it will add invalid or junk names (or email addresses) to Recent Contacts, specially when users received spam emails with a lot of email addresses in the TO and CC fields.
Do you want to go with this features or not, is your choice. I personally like this feature, and once in a while clean up the Recent Contacts for junk names.
Popularity: 3% [?]