Hi everybody!

Long time no post… life and many other things have gotten in the way of my blogging over the past few months… oh well.

A bunch of “things” have changed over the past few months both in my personal and professional life and some of those things prevented me from blogging.

From a “professional” perspective, the biggest change is that our company has decided to go with a different cloud-based offering for our messaging & collaboration platform…

Instead of going with Google Apps, we will be going with Microsoft Office 365.

Our goal to migrate “away” from Lotus Notes & Domino had already been announced in my two previous blog posts titled “Life, The Meaning of It and Moving from Lotus Notes to Google Apps” and “Migrating from Lotus Notes to Google Apps: Step 2 – The Statement of Work“.

However, a new CIO came onboard in November and steered the company toward Office 365 for many reasons that I will not discuss here.

So, the project started today with a conference call with the project team from our vendor and, at this point in the project, they only want to get access to our Active Directory (to see how we’ve setup user accounts) and they asked me to spool up a new virtual machine for the ADFS server (Active Directory Federation Service… more info here).

Conclusion?

If you want to laugh, 1 day after we signed the contract, an IBM Lotus Representative called us to see if had heard about LotusLive and wanted a demo…

We told him… “yes, too little… too late…: we have been asking for calls from reps and for help in setting up a pilot since we came back from LotusSphere 2011 but nobody ever got back to us so we gave up”.

He wasn’t surprised either…

Wish me/us luck!

Marc & Patrick

As Strange As It May Appear…

Our Lotus Notes & Domino servers provide email access for other systems via POP3 and IMAP. Now, in itself, that’s not anything “strange” per say. No, the strange part is that I [very] rarely get requests for help in regards to those system accessing emails via POP3 or IMAP.

Now, I know that some of the gurus in the Yellowverse are running servers that provide service via POP3 and IMAP for very large user communities and that they do run into problems from time-to-time (my opinion of this is entirely based on a handful of posts on planetlotus.org that I’ve seen over the past few years).

Alas, some of our servers provide about 20 to 30 machines email access via POP3 and IMAP so the “help, I’ve fallen and I can’t get up” calls are few and far between for me.

Today however, Mike Miedona, one of our Lotus Notes Developer (and Siebel Administrator extraordinaire as well), reported that Siebel could not get emails anymore from the server. The exact error he saw in the Siebel logs were all like those below:

POP3SMTP[02/28/2012 10:09:17]:ERROR:POP3 PASS error: -ERR The system was unable to log siebeluatuser@uu.com in.  Maildrop opened for exclusive access by another user.

Mike even went further: he tried to Telnet from the Siebel server into the Notes server to “get” the emails via the same port as the POP3 port (110) and couldn’t either.

So, I did the usual checks: the server was up and running and the POP3 task was running as well. My next test however didn’t work: I started Mozilla Thunderbird and tried to connect to an account via POP3… I had the same error.

A quick Google search later resulted in the solution…

The Solution…

It’s actually quite simple… if you Google the error “Maildrop opened for exclusive access by another user”, you’ll eventually stumble upon Technote #1247587. That particular Technote is titled “Unable to obtain exclusive access to maildrop when POP3 client is constantly polling the server” and here is a link to it if you need it.

Now, even if the Technote says it applies to OS/400 and i5/OS… the solution contain within it did the trick for us with our Windows 2003 based server:

Once this occurs, the server will need to be restarted…

So a quick reboot … and everything started to work again.

Conclusion?

Well, this one was a bit strange… We are not sure why this happened but the solution was quick and easy. If it happens again within the next few days/weeks, I’ll open a PMR with Lotus Support to get some air support.

In the meantime, I hope this helps someone, somewhere…

Thanks for reading!

Marc

My Amazing Manager (Patrick Darke) Likes To Try New Phones…

So, I was not really surprised when he showed me his brand new Galaxy Nexus… however he was only showing it to me because he could not activate it with Traveler.

Basically speaking, every time he would go to log into the Traveler server on his Galaxy Nexus phone, he would get a message on his phone that said:

Error 500

HTTP Web Server: Invalid POST Request Exception

At first, I thought something had gone wrong on the Traveler server (we are currently running R8.5.2.4)!

I checked and the server was OK *and* I could access the Traveler server web site on my own Android phone (running Gingerbread 2.3.something).

A couple of Google searches later that returned no solution to this, I did what I always do: I called up Lotus Support.

The Solution…

Well, after opening the call, I got a call back 1.5 hour later from a support rep that told me very quickly the solution.

(1) Upgrade your Lotus Traveler server to R8.5.3.1.

(2) Download from Lotus Fix Central the Interim Fix we posted yesterday (December 19th) to add Android 4.0 support.

The Interim Fix on Fix Central is titled “LNT_8531_20111207_1606_ANDROID” (see screenshot below) but the support rep sent me a link to a different one that ends with “1619″ … so I guess I got a newer version (?).

So tonight, it’s Lotus Traveler server upgrade time for me!

Conclusion?

Well, not much to say… I just hope it helps someone, somewhere out there.

Thanks for reading!

Marc

This Story Has It All…

Suspense! Wonder! Stress! And bad customer service from Dell to boot!

It’s got everything except Bond Girls and explosions… so long story short, if your Dell MD3200 Storage Array suddenly starts acting completely wonky, your VMware ESXi servers can’t see any of the LUNs on it and are getting bad customer service from Dell… you might want to try this…

… simply re-create the Host Group configuration!

Yep, that did the trick for us.

You can read the full [and sad] story on my other blog (www.thenewvmadmin.com) via this link.

Conclusion?

None really… this is just a “heads-up” in case anybody runs into something like this on an MD3200.

Thanks for reading!

Regards

I Just Had A Weird One…

While troubleshooting a DAOS issue with XLS files becoming unreadable, I noticed that could not use the “Files” tab in my Administrator client (R8.5.2 FP2) anymore to browse all the files on the server running DAOS .

My admin client would stop after loading a few databases and say “Error getting files on ARCHIVES/UU – Database list is full” in the status bar at the bottom.

Here’s a screen shot:

The Simple Solution…

Oddly enough, I was on the phone with Lotus Support about a DAOS issue when this happened… so the rep did a quick search and found Technote #1438610 titled “Administration Client does not list all files under “Files” tab” (here’s a link) and the solution is super simple:

1) Exit the Administration Client.

2) Rename the domadmin.nsf and dommon.nsf databases in the Notes Data Directory.

3) Restart the Administration Client. Those databases will be rebuilt automatically.

That’s it… that’s all! I wonder what causes it however. The Technote says it applies to 8.0.2 but I’m running 8.5.2 FP2 so I found that a bit odd.

Conclusion / In Other News…

In other news, in working with Lotus Support about my DAOS issue, the rep told me something so amazingly and incredibly dumb about DAOS that I will just have to blog about it.

I’m giving Lotus Support the “benefit of the doubt” for now and I will wait a bit before posting something about my DAOS issue and what I was told.

Thanks for reading!

Marc

I Called Lotus Support Often Over The Years…

Maybe a bit too much: I used to l-o-v-e Lotus Support! I got great service, fast response times, and generally had an excellent experience with them. I still like them… but the magic is gone.

Nowadays, service is a “hit or miss”. Response times have gone out the window. My “call back” preferences are ignored 50% of the time. And to top it off, I’ve had really bad experiences recently with some support reps.

If you wonder if I have anything to “back my claims”, here’s a graph that indicates how often I called Lotus Support over the past 10 years.

If you wonder what happened in 2010, it’s very simple: that’s the year we deployed Lotus Notes R8.5.1. It’s as simple as that: we had a few problems with it.

So, Where’s Pay-Per-Incident?

As we prepare to move away from Lotus to Google Apps (see my blog post here) we will not renew our support agreement when it comes up for renewal (soon). We won’t get rid of Lotus Notes & Domino right away… we’ve got too many apps on that platform

So my manager Patrick asked me to check with Lotus Support the cost for “Pay Per Incident” calls with Lotus Support.

I called up Lotus Support and after 1 transfer, 1 disconnect later and 1 call back, I was able to speak with a customer service rep named “Magan” who told me that Lotus Support does not offer “Pay Per Incident” anymore.

That’s odd! BlackBerry still does (don’t take my word for it: check this page on their site for details) and VMware also offers that for some of it’s product (once again, check this page and this page on their web site for the details).

So, does anybody remember “when” Lotus Support stopped offering “Pay Per Incident” (if they ever did – I’m pretty sure that “yes” they did) and “why” they stopped offering that? Leave a message in the comments if you know the answers to those questions.

Conclusion?

Well, that was just a simple blog post … nothing really to write home about: it’s a simple question that I can’t find answer for easily.

Thanks for reading!

Marc

This Will Be A Quick Blog Post…

I ran into something interesting in my VMware environment today. One of the PC LAN Admins had to reboot an ESXi 3.5 server that runs one of our Lotus Domino servers and got a nice error message in vCenter after the reboot.

Basically speaking, the PC LAN Admin and I got this error message when we tried to access that old ESXi 3.5 host it via our vSphere clients:

The license server is not configured to perform the operation

That’s an odd error to get… especially since everything has been running super smoothly in my VMware environment. Oh and if you wonder “why” we are still running ESXi 3.5 it’s because we do have a few “old” servers with 32 bit processors. Simple as that.

The Root Cause & The Solution…

Well, I won’t repeat myself but if you are interested in reading about the root cause and the solution, feel free to head over to my other blog (The New VMware Admin) and read my post titled “vCenter 4.1 Update 2: Your License Server Settings Will Be Wiped Out During Your Upgrade“.

Conclusion?

Well, lots of us now have Lotus Domino running on VMware… and it works like a charm 99.999% of the time.

So, I decided to “cross-post” this on my Domino blog just in case someone else, somewhere, runs into the same error.

Thanks for reading!

Marc

I Got A New Phone…

And I think it has anorexia! It’s a Motorola Droid RAZR from Verizon and I seriously think that this phone suffers from anorexia! It’s extremely thin and light compared to my BlackBerry Torch 9800… truth be told: I feel like I’m going to break it just by holding it! This picture might convey a bit more how “thin” that Razr is:

Does It Work Well?

Well, my previous experience(s) with Android phones weren’t that long so I don’t any “bias” toward certain Android phones or versions. In fact, I should note that I’m a BlackBerry fan… despite the fact that they can’t figure a way out of their current tailspin.

Regardless of all this, here’s a quick recap of what I like/dislike so far.

Like: I don’t have much Android experience to compare it “against” but I can tell you one thing: it’s fast!

Like: Response times to switch between apps and/or surf the web is much faster than on the previous Android phones I’ve used in the past.

Like: The screen is *huge* and easy to read. It’s not a “retina display* but it’s still very bright and colorful. Better than the screen on my BlackBerry Torch 9800 (I probably shouldn’t even compare it against that phone… the screen is horrible on my Torch).

Dislike: Battery life is horrible. Why do I say that? Well, I got that phone yesterday afternoon at 1 PM. I fully charged it and then installed Lotus Traveler, installed a few apps from the marketplace and surfed the web a bit to “test-drive” it. I did not put it on the charger overnight so this morning at 8:30 AM the battery reached 0%! I had not even placed a call yet with it!

Not Sure if I Like Or Dislike: It runs Gingerbread (Android 2.3.5)… I thought I was going to get a higher rev, 4.x aka Ice Cream Sandwich, but then again the development kit was only released a few weeks ago. Maybe we’ll get an over-the-air upgrade? I hope so anyway.

Not Sure if I Like Or Dislike: The size of the device overall. It’s bigger than my BlackBerry Torch and it’s bigger than an iPhone. Much bigger! So time will tell if I “get used” to the giant screen and device size.

To wrap this up, here’s a picture to compare side-by-side the two devices:

About Lotus Traveler…

We run Traveler 8.5.2.4 in our environment (not 8.5.3) and I was pretty sure I’d get some widgets on Android [after installing Traveler] that I could display on the device screen… that’s not the case. I will have to ask Lotus if I need to upgrade to 8.5.3 to get that or not (or if it’s just because there aren’t any widgets for my version of Android).

Also an odd coincidence: the Traveler server crashed when I did my activation for the first time… very odd timing.

Conclusion?

Well, I don’t have much to say except… “stay tuned”. I’ll probably blog in a month or two about my experience with that device.

In the meantime: thanks for reading!

Marc

This Will Be A Short Post…

Yesterday, I blogged about adding iNotes_WA_MAC_IM=1 to your servers notes.ini to enable the little Sametime chat icon in Safari on Mac’s.

After you do that, the Sametime icon appears in iNotes and you can display your contact list… but if you forget to  disable the pop-up blocker in Safari, you won’t be able to send or receive chats from anyone!

So a word of advice, remember to warn your Mac users to disable pop-up blockers if they want to be able to chat. The easiest way for a user to disable the pop-up blocker is to click on the “Safari” menu and then to remove the check-mark next to the “Block Pop-Up Windows” option:

Oddly enough #1, Safari does not display any warnings about a pop-up being blocked like FireFox does on my MacBook Pro (it displays a yellow bar at the top)… oh well.

Oddly enough #2, I could not find an option in the Safari preferences to set “exceptions” for pop-up blockers like you can in Internet Explorer or FireFox on Windows… but I’m quite new to Mac’s so I probably haven’t found “where” to set that option yet.

Conclusion?

This was just a simple blog post… something I forgot to mention in my blog post yesterday…

I hope it helps someone, somewhere…

Thanks for reading!

Marc

Mmm… That Was Weird (For Me Anyway)…

I work in a nice worldwide company that I really like. And like most companies we have standards and policies. For example, we say that we do not support any Apple computers on our network. It doesn’t mean we don’t have any Macs here and there (some graphic designers will only let you pry their Mac from their cold dead hands for example), but they are very very very rare.

So, our story begins with the fact that we have some consultants here and there in the company and we provide for them an iNotes account (not the full Notes client – just iNotes) to communicate with our employees more easily either via email or via the Sametime chat client embedded into iNotes.

Today however, I received a strange request from one of those consultants:

“Marc, why can’t I see and use the little Sametime icon when I use Safari on my MacBook Pro to access iNotes? I saw that my co-worker [another consultant with an IBM ThinkPad running Windows 7] has a little icon in his iNotes that allows him to use Sametime and chat with other people in the company… but that icon isn’t even there for me on my Mac!”

I was puzzled… so I investigated.

The Simple Solution

A few Google queries later, I stumbled upon a 2009(!) developerWorks article titled “New features in IBM Lotus iNotes 8.5: Full mode“. About 1/3 down the article there’s a paragraph that says:

Last, to use the Lotus Sametime capability on Mac browsers, the NOTES.INI setting iNotes_WA_MacIM=1 must be specified within the server’s NOTES.INI file.

Doh! I guess I missed that when I read the release notes on our last upgrade to 8.5.2…

So, after adding the line iNotes_WA_MacIM=1 to the notes.ini of the iNotes server and restarting the HTTP task (TELL HTTP RESTART) … that consultant was able to see the little chat icon in iNotes.

Conclusion?

At this point in time, I’m not sure why it’s not enabled by default… maybe it’s still not super stable and Lotus does not want this widespread? Or did I miss a new checkbox on my server documents (maybe)?.

Anyhow … I just hope this helps someone, somewhere…

Thanks for reading!

Marc