Troubleshooting Lotus Notes/Domino Errors and Resolving Errors

IBM Lotus Notes Emailing software is one of the renowned application commonly in use in corporate world . It offers functionality such as :
1. Email Service
2. Calendars
3. Address Book Management .
4. Discussion forums
5. Save Instant messaging Conversation .
6. File sharing .
7. Blogging etc .

In this article I am describing Lotus notes problems and solutions to fix Lotus notes error messages .

Errors & Solutions

PROBLEM 1: When Lotus Domino server is rebooted and user try to access mail database then the following error occurs:

 “You are not authorised to access the database”.

Solution :

Perform the following steps:
1. Select a mail folder as admin client and right click ” Manage Directory ACL “.
2. Set variable “ENABLE_ACL_FILES=1” in notes.ini file.
3. Restart the Lotus Domino server.

Or

Change or delete a data directory access list
1. As the Domino Administrator connect to the server.
2. Click Files tab.
4. In the left corner, select the directory to which you are restricting access. The access restrictions also apply to sub-directory of the directory .
5. In the Tools menu on the right, select Database – Directory ACL .
6. Option below is ” Who should be able to access this directory? ” click the person icon .
7. Window opens up , do the following for each person name whom you want to allow to access the data directory:
8. Select the name from a Domino Directory, or type the name in the “Add name not in list” box . You can specify the name of a user, server, group or a wildcard, for example, * or Developers .Then Click Add.
9. Click OK after adding rights to access list.
10. Click OK again. The directory now displays a lock .

Note: “Manage Directory ACL” is list in the Mail folder .This ACL specifies the access rights and permissions user has to access the database . With Access Control List unauthorised users can’t access content stored in emails, appointments, groups, tasks, to do list etc.

PROBLEM 2: User try to open the Mail Database after the server up-gradation the error message displayed is :

 “Database is corrupt ; cannot allocate space”

Solution to fix Lotus Notes error:

Follow the steps for troubleshooting common lotus notes domino error messages:

Run Lotus Domino maintenance utilities (Updall, Compact, Fixup) as follows:
1. Run Fixup command line tool :

a) Load username.nsf file .
b) Execute fixup -f command.

Note: fixup -f command : Check all documents in the mail database.
2. Run Compact command line tool
Execute compact -i -c -d -K

Note: compact -i -c -d -K command set large UniqueNameKey (UNK) table ignores errors, copy-styles, deleted view indexes when creating large UNK table .UNK table contains new field names.

3. Run Updall command line tool
Execute updall -R
Note: updall -R is used to Create copy of Lotus Notes Database to access the database on other machine .

PROBLEM 3: When User attempts to delete a message then error alert message gets displayed:

 “Overflow pop-up message”

Solution:
Disable embedded browser for MIME mail
Follow sequentially:
1.Click File – > Preferences.
For Macintosh OS X users: Click Lotus Notes >Preferences.
2. Click Basic Notes Client Configuration.
3. Under Additional Options, select Disable embedded browser for MIME mail.
4. Click OK .

Note: Use of the system browser result in security issues in some cases .

Problem 4: Lotus Notes program files are installed locally on user’s machine, while the data files are actually stored on a file server because of this Ibm Lotus Notes/domino has stopped working . When the user attempts to launch IBM Notes then following error appears on screen :

“ You can’t use Administration program while the Domino server is running “

Solution to resolve IBM Lotus Notes error :
1.Open Notes.ini file using Notepad or word pad .
2. Add parameter “Directory=” under “Notes Program Files ” such as :
Directory=C:\Program Files\IBM\Lotus\Notes\Data
3. Save Notes.ini configuration file.
4. Reboot the Domino server

Problem 5 : A Lotus Domino Server runs Out of Office agent is responsible for sending an e-mail message . The agent runs, but the mail message is not sent . The error message displayed :

 “Unable to send mail”
or

       “Server not responding”

Solution:
Follow Steps:
1.Check the Mail Server parameter in the server’s Notes.ini configuration file contains the correct canonical name of the server.
2. Run the command sh config mailserver on the Domino console .
3. If the entry is blank then this is an issue .
To Resolve the above issue do following:
a)Shut down the Domino server
b)Add the canonical name of the server name to the MailServer parameter in the Notes.ini file .
(For Example: MailServer= CN=ServerName/O=OrgName)
4. Restart the server.

Note : A canonical name is alias name of the Server .

These are some common Lotus Notes error and the best possible solutions have been discussed . These solutions don’t resolve the errors then use NSF File to PST Converter so that emails stored in NSF files can be accessed in future . Utility is easy to use and has a user friendly interface that a Non-technical person can even understand .