Unknown network error

[awskent]

After many frustrating hours I have found out that a windows nt and windows 2000 server will drop a users session to a mapped drive after 15 minutes (the default) to save on session usage. This can be seen by a red cross being displayed on the mapped drive in explorer (sometimes it is not displayed). Just by coincedence Lotus Notes will try to do a refresh on the data directory every 15 minutes (also default). Now if you go to explorer and hit the mapped drive with the cross on it a logon session will be activated with the server and you will be able to see the contents of the drive. This also happens with notes but because you have been disconnected you have already lost the full time connection need by notes to the ~notes.lck file you will get the error message.

References.

Microsoft Knowledge Base Article
Q297684
Q138365 (Registry key info is in here)

This is what I am trying at the moment. On the server where the user maps the drives, change the default value. We have changed it to 90 Minutes. There is also the same registry entry on the workstation as I found out when a red cross was displayed on two of the three drives even though they are all on the same server. I changed the value on the workstation to 90 minutes as well.

If this fails I am thinking of changing the startup directory to a url path instead of the h:\notes\data that you see so often but that is another discussion.


Kenny

 

[blueskyspa]

awskent:
I know it has been a long time after you posted this useful info.
But did the setting change work ?
(From the default of 15 min to 90 min...)

 

[awskent]

Sad thing is it did not work. However if go into the notes.ini file on the user and replace h:\notes\data\ with \\servername\users\username\notes\data it will work. We do not get the error message any more. Once you have done it go into processors (task manager) and end process on explorer. Notes will still run. Doing this makes notes act independantly of W2k. It is great.

Kenny

 

[blueskyspa]

Kenny:
I came to the same solution after a lot of research and trial and error. (Re-Directing users files to a network drive).
The Notes Administrative documentation I have been able to find gave no indication you could change the notes.ini 'Directory=' variable without inviting major problems.

In my shop we have had cases where notes especially under NT 4.0 had mysterious behaviors that might have been attributed to this default setting or similiar.
ie corrupted cache not attributed to normal use and abuse.
We see much less of this since moving to W2K.

Have you totally "exonerated" autodisconnect from causing problems ?


Appeciate any help

Rich