As an IBM Champion, I often have to save clients from misinformation and FUD about Lotus Notes. Other times, I have to save them from themselves. Sometimes, I just have to put on my cape and save the day. I love challenges, but some are harder than others...
A client called me recently to tell me that after many years of happily using Lotus Notes, he now had a problem: his folders in his Lotus Notes Mail are disappearing - yes disappearing. Let me explain. He opens his Lotus Notes mail and clicks on "Folders" in the left hand outline. Normally, this would expand to show the list of available folders. In his case, as soon as you click on the folders entry the list of folders disappears. I created a new database with just a few test messages and folders - same problem.
Some background: The mail file in question is 8GB (I know, that's another issue) and the problem only occurs on only two of the 5 computers that have replicas of this database. I do the normal stuff to check for database issues including various levels of Fixup and Compact all the way to the extreme end of replacing the database with a fresh replica. Finally, think it was something machine specific I even did a full wipe and reinstall of Notes client. No luck.
The problem occurred when opening that one file and it did not matter if accessed it locally or on the Domino Server. What's really strange is that I could open the file from my workstation and all folders appear just fine. I even tried different versions of the Notes Mail template from 6.x - 8.5x. Same result.
Having exhausted the options I could think of, I contacted my friend, Stephan Wissel, who knows all there is to know about Notes. Stephan reminded me of his recommended tips fixing a Lotus Notes database. Stephan then offered some additional suggestions on how to troubleshoot my client's Notes database issue:
Checklist:
1) Network compression enabled?
2) ODS51 with design and data compression?
3) Are the NSF properly defragmented?
Note: The settings above don't replicate ---> check these on each machine
4) Good idea is to have FolderReferences enabled
When Notes replicates the view/folder indexes are not replicated, only documents. So if client hasn't used some of the NSF for a while the view indexer will need to reindex the folder he tries to open - and that might take time. A manual "updall" from the command line probably helps (use my fix-script to be sure).
I tried all of the above with no improvement. I want to thank Stephan, though. checklist is a little more extensive than my own and it helped me rule out fixes that would not work.
Meanwhile, customer is not happy and talking about dumping Lotus Notes and switching to GMail. I'm not happy because I know that would be a disaster for him but I couldn't fix his problem and I was unable to explain why his folders disappear on two of his 5 computers.
Then I found it. It's probably not what you think.
In the next blog post, I will share the solution I found and it did not involve a migration to GMail.
Meanwhile, if you want to guess at the cause and fix, here's your opportunity...
Discussion/Comments (18):
Easy.....
Apparently the user must have some type of keyboard macro app that is triggering his folders to be deleted :-)
Gunawan T Wicaksono (http://gunawantw.wordpress.com): 5/22/2012 10:05:23 PM
Fixup or recreate the workspace(desktop8.ndk) ?
Dragon Cotterill (): 5/23/2012 12:41:05 AM
It's not something stupid like putting a bracket "(" at the start of the folder name is it?
Ian Randall (): 5/23/2012 1:20:01 AM
Something deleted the open folder Icon in the Image resources
Eric Mack (www.ica.com): 5/23/2012 1:42:57 AM
These are all great guesses - at least I don;t feel like an idiot for checking them, but the solution ended up being quite different from those suggestions in these comments.
Steve Dickson (): 5/23/2012 2:39:49 AM
Read Access list on the folder? Perhaps user got a new ID recently, got renamed but AdminP failed, etc.?
Actions- Folder- Upgrade Folder Design?
Bruce Elgort (http://elguji.com): 5/23/2012 4:58:00 AM
I bet it has to do with a four later word F__T
Richard Schwartz (http://www.poweroftheschwartz.com): 5/23/2012 11:39:14 AM
Did your "full wipe" and reinstall include wiping the data directory?
Eric Mack (www.ica.com): 5/24/2012 9:54:07 PM
If you recall from my description, there are five computers each with a replica of the same mail file. Three computers have no problem while two have the disappearing folders.
After banging my head against the wall trying to find the problem within Lotus Notes, I decided to step outside of the box for a new perspective. Well, after comparing differences between the computers I found that the two computers with problems were both set to a Windows system font size of 125%. I saw no reason to suspect this as affecting folder visibility in Lotus Notes but I had little else to go on. I reset the windows system font size to 100% and tested Notes. All folders were now visible. Not wanting to accept this as the cause so easily, I then ran a few more tests changing the default font to 125% and back to 100% with reboots in between. Well, all I can say is that for this client on these computers, the 125% system font size caused folders in Lotus Notes to disappear. Go figure...
Dragon Cotterill (): 5/25/2012 1:41:32 AM
So strictly speaking the weren't "disappearing" folders. Looking at the design of the DB the folders would have been visible. What it should have been was simply "folders not displaying".
I'll admit though it's an odd result. What was the "Default Sans Serif" font set to?
Richard Schwartz (http://www.poweroftheschwartz.com): 5/30/2012 4:24:40 PM
Have you opened a PMR with IBM? Though probably rare, it's a problem that they ought to fix.
William Austin (): 8/5/2013 9:28:21 AM
Actually I have the same symptoms - email keeps disappearing, and sometimes entire folders.
However I am using the default font size and I suspect another cause. BTW, IBM's lotus tech support can't figure it out either, and compete reinstalls of LN, removing mail box and having it repopulated from the server, etc., all appear to work VERY briefly and then the problems are back.
At random times (once or twice a week or once a month - it can vary) large amounts of the email in my in-box will disappear, OR folders I have created will disappear.
Somtimes doing the nfixup -r helps but not always (and the problem eventually comes back).
When I go to the ALL DOCUMENTS view, then usually a part of my email will be there but is shown as being in a non-existent folder, one with a name containing random alphanumeric, spacee, and '{}[]()-_' characters. It looks like a machine-generated name. (FWIW I have never created a folder name conaining any of the '_{}[]()|'";<> ~@#%^&*' characters.)
When that occurs I move the ones I see there into another folder, "Lost-As-Usual" and after I do that, IF I exit LN and then come back, a few more of the missing documents are in the All docs view again. If I repeat that enough times, then when ALL of the emails from a "missing" folder are gone, the folder usually shows back up - empty of course.
I have gone on-line with IBM tech support and let them look at the problem. They do not have a clue. One person told me it was completely impossible. But it still happens at least once a week and sometimes more than once a day.
The above has led me to believe that LN is definitely NOT ready for prime time. I've been doing computer email forever (ok > 35 years) and I've canned many email clients which were more reliable than LN.
But at my current job I'm forced to use it, so if anyone has a suggestion I'll be glad to give it a try.
Karla Consroe (): 8/22/2013 5:37:45 AM
17 of my inbox subfolders disappeared. I went into the All Documents folder and marked two messages from a missing folder as unread. Indeed, a folder and subfolder (among those that were still visible) showed up bolded but the missing folder was still not visible. When I view my mail my through a browser instead of through IBM Notes 9 the folders are all there. Please, do you have any suggestions?
Thank you.
Mark Boxall (): 10/9/2013 1:06:21 AM
You probably have too many folders in the structure. Too many folders and/or excessively long folder names can cause this, particularly if you have some folders expanded. Try reducing the number of folders.
Rebecca (): 10/10/2013 5:54:24 AM
The problem is I dont know how to get to your next blog so this did not help at all =(
Phillip (): 10/23/2013 12:41:30 PM
Rebecca, the answer was posted in the comments about half way up.
Discussion for this entry is now closed.