Basically its an IBM/MS thing. Right?

[mizzy]

Hi there,

Recently I have had more and more users complaining about Lotus notes crashing when they are reading their e-mail or responding to an e-mail or creating an e-mail.
(5.0.8 and Windows 2k with SP4)

I've read many postings and there does not seem to be any single solution. Upgrades seem to solve some of the problems but many users are using 5.0.12 with XP and they still experience crashes.

Is this just IBM & Microsoft not being mates. "If notes keeps crashing they will switch to outlook".

Does anyone have a "this is it" solution?
regards,

 

[yert33]

This is not what we experience. We have client versions ranging from 5.0.3 thru 5.0.12 and operating systems from NT4.0, Win2K and XP. Rarely is a Notes crash reported in our environment.

What exactly happens when Notes crashes? Is it the red window?

I'd suggest looking for other reasons other than "Windows is not playing nicely with Notes" although I wouldn't put it past M$ to do something like that.

Another forum you might try to post your problem is the Lotus Notes forum:

http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/46dom.nsf.

(sorry, I can't figure out how to make that a link.)
Search for the crashing problem there.

Post more details here, if you can and also post the solution you find!

peace.

 

[locogringo]

My situation is like Yert33's. I'm in a school district environment and I think our Notes versions range from 5.0.8 - 5.0.12. My dept doesn't have crashes.

On another note. I installed the R6 trail version and it crashed a few times. I assumed it was b/c our DB's are version 5 and I was trying to run Notes R6 with it. Were you ever in an Notes R4 environment - then upgraded to R5? If so, did the Notes Admin upgrade the user DB's to R5? I know this probably didn't answer your question - maybe it'll give you another place to look though.

Good Luck !

 

[APlant]

Hello,
Normally Notes is very stable. I have seen the Client crash though when the users' Notes data directory is not on the local PC but on a network drive. This normally works OK (although not officially supported) but if there are network gliches then the Notes client will crash when it loses it's data directory.
Do you have the Notes client configured in this way?

 

[mizzy]

Thanks for taking the time out to assist.

Wow! Putting the data directory on a network drive!
Why would notes be configured like that?

In answer to your question, no notes is not configured like that. Now when it happens to a user I just rebuild the PC. I know sledgehammer and peanut, but it seems to work. God only knows why. Maybe the NT profiles get screwed up.

Have a good one.

Regards,

 

[kljohnson]

You would put the data directory on a netowrk drive so it is backed up. You can also access it from any machine. If a computer crashes the user still has all their contacts and saved files. When you re-image a machine you don't have to worry about saving there notes data.

 

[locogringo]

Just a note on the approach "kljohnson" mentioned. It's a good Idea to have those files backed up. However, running Notes Client from a server location may make it run slow as well as open doors for data corruption. You could make a filename.bat file and have Scheduled Tasks run this every night. The contents of the filename.bat file can be a script that copies the Notes files you want to have on the server so they are backed up.

Example: Open Notepad and paste this in.
The lines wrap in this window - they should be all on one line in the file. Change paths and file names to whatever you have and save the file as something.bat Note: there should be (2) blank lines at the end of the file and one in between each entry.
REM *** Begining of file ***
REM Syncronize Key Notes Files
REM
REM Switches: /e copies all files and directories
REM /d copies newer files only
REM /r overwrites "read-only" files
REM /y disables overwrite prompts

xcopy d:\Lotus\Data\names.nsf g:\backups\Lotus\*.* /e /d /r /y

xcopy d:\Lotus\Data\bookmark.nsf g:\backups\Lotus\*.* /e /d /r /y

xcopy d:\Lotus\Data\archive.nsf g:\backups\Lotus\*.* /e /d /r /y


REM *** End of file ***

hope this helps someone.

 

[ColoradoScout]

In support of several domains, using LNr5 or LNr6 on any MS O/S, we have learned that O/S efficiency is paramount to Lotus Notes & the MS O/S's working well together. The less efficient the O/S is, the more likely LNr5 or LNr6 is to exhibit quirky, erratic, intermittant, or chronic behaviors.
Listed are the basic tasks we perform with users to establish O/S efficiency baseline, especially when effecting resolution of certain Lotus Notes issues where Lotus Notes interacts with the O/S. (Ex. Attaching files to an email or forwarding email the most common issues when either the user or the agent reports, "...I can find no reason why this won't work..."
1. Run the O/S Defrag task.
2. Emptying out the Temp directories (yes, there are occasionally hidden Temp directories especially in MS XP).
3. Synchronize the Environmental variables (Temp & Tmp directories) in the System Properties \ Advanced tab

Hope this helps,

Carey

 

[mizzy]

Hi Guys

Thanks for all your help.
I had this question posted on a forums but forgot to put a posting on here.

I eventually stabilised the problem this way.

When I was having the problem my Lotus notes servers were running R4.6.6b. My clients were running R5.0.8
I changed the clients to R4.6.6b and hey presto the clients stopped crashing.

Regards,