Domino Diva

 A colleague and friend of mine, Amy Hoerle, has put together a comprehensive education module for DAOS.  Amy works in the IBM Lotus support center at IBM Rochester, MN and is extremely knowledgeable. While the title of the education module is "Introduction to Domino Attachment Object Service (DAOS), it is definitely more than an introduction.  Amy covers not only what DAOS is and how to set it up, she also provides insights into items that could easily be overlooked such as:
 

I have a customer that has about 550 users; of these 550 users, about 12 were reporting that they were receiving the OOO reminder email every morning, even though they had turned their OOO agents off.  The document properties showed the messages were received every morning at 3:59 AM.  About half of the users were using the iNotes6 template and the other half were using the Std6Mail template. The server level is 6.5.6 FP3. 

 In trying to figure out why these handful of users were receiving the reminder message to turn their OOO agents off, I did the following:

• checked that their OOO agents were not enabled
• ensured the users did not have local copies or replicas that may be causing issues
• made sure the users didn't have local archives with the OOO agent enabled
• checked for replicas on other servers in the domain
• checked the schedule of all agents on the server and din't see any OOO agents scheduled for these users nor were there any agents scheduled to run at 3:59 AM
• using NoteMan, looked at the contents of the OutOfOfficeProfile documents and ensured the documents were not corrupt in any way
  
• deleted the OutOfOficeProfile profile documents for the affected users
  
• deleted the form (OutOfOfficeProfile) and the agents OutOfOffice and (Edit Office Profile) from the affected mail files and then refreshed their design so these design elements were pulled from the template [prior to doing so, checked the templates to make sure the OOO agent wasn't enabled in the templates, everything checked out just fine]
• checked the document properties of the OOO agent reminder emails and looked for clues there, this turned up nothing as well
  

With all of these items turning up empty, I next enabled debug to capture agent execution details and then combed through the output.  This revealed the following message being generated for each of the affected users at 3:59 AM.

"AMgr: Received new mail event from Router for 'mail/xxxxx.nsf' "

So indeed the users were being sent the OOO remidner emails, but still no clues as to what was causing the reminder emails to be sent.

In looking at the tasks running on the server, I noticed the UPDATE task was not running.  The ServerTasks= line in the notes.ini had been edited and this task had been removed from the ServerTasks variable.  When inquiring about this, I found out this was a change a consultant that had previously been engaged had made.  There had been no specific reason given for removing the task.

I had the customer add the UPDATE task back to the ServerTasks= variable and then do a 'load update' at the console to get the task running right away.  This fixed the problem, no more OOO reminder messages were sent to the affected users.  I have to admit this is the strangest OOO agent issue I have worked on.

In my most recent blog entry when I migrated a customer from Domino on Linux to Domino on iSeries ( Fun day tomorrow!  ) I noted there was an issue with the CFGDOMSVR command not taking the TIMEZONE parameter.  I did some checking and found this is a known issue with an open SPR.  This issue is planned to be fixed in release 8.0.3.

The TIMEZONE parameter is new in release 8 on iSeries (AS/400, System i, IBM i, ...).  The parameter allows a Domino server to adopt the timezone of the iSeries it is running on.  The value for this parameter can be set to *SYSVAL or a specific timezone setting.  If *SYSVAL is specified, the value in the iSeries system value, QTIMZON, will be used by the Domino server when setting it's timezone.  The problem is this parameter isn't working correctly.  The result when configuring a release 8.0, 8.0.1, or 8.0.2 server is that the Timezone variable in the notes.ini is set to 0.

Until this issue is addressed in release 8.0.3, your options are to either enter the correct timezone (GMT, CST, CET, ZE4, ...) when configuring the Domino server; or if you choose to specify the value *SYSVAL, you will need to edit the notes.ini of the Domino server and change the value of the Timezone variable as appropriate.  

The Work with Domino Servers (WRKDOMSVR) command is a wonderful utility provided with the Lotus Domino server code for i5/OS.  It provides an interface to work with Domino servers in many ways.  The most commonly used features are starting, stopping, and displaying or working with the Domino console.  There are some options on the WRKDOMSVR command that are seldom used, however they provide some very helpful features.  These features aren't displayed on the main screen for this command, therefore I am finding few people know about them.

These hidden features are options 14, 15, and 16.  Option 14 is 'Work with support files'.  This option takes you directly into the IBM_TECHNICAL_SUPPORT subdirectory of the Domino server's data directory.  Option 15 is 'Work with NSDs' which takes you into the IBM_TECHNICAL_SUPPORT directory and only displays the NSD files.  Option 16 is 'Dump server call stacks'.  This option is especially helpful if you are experiencing a server hang condition or other critical issues with your Domino server.  By using option 16, call stacks are dumped for each active job running on the Domino server.  It used to be that you had to download a special utility to dump the call stacks, now it is as simple as specifying option 16 next to the Domino server!

There is one other option I would like to point out.  This one is shown on the main WRKDOMSVR screen, however I find it is not used as frequently as it could be.  This is option 9, 'Work server jobs'.  I find I use this option all the time.  I can quicly see which jobs are running on the Domino server, what their run state is, how much CPU they are consuming, and the number of threads that are active under the job.  When working with customers, I often see people switching to WRKACTJOB to see the jobs running under the Domino subsystem.  Once I show them how easy it is to get to the information they're looking for by simplying selecting option 9, they are quite pleased.

 I came upon a strange situation with my test Domino server I have on an iSeries (ok, IBM i) server.  When I configured this test server, I neglected to select the option to have the server automatically start when TCP/IP is started.  The iSeries was IPLed over the weekend for some maintenance work.  When I went to access my server today, I had to start it.  Right after starting it, I thought, "I need to change the autostart parameter so this situation doesn't happen in the future".

 

I issued a CHGDOMSVR command right after starting the server, which lead me to a really strange situation.  The server appeared as if it had started normally, however I was unable to access it.  Upon examining the messages on the console, I saw this message:

 

"Warning! Failed to allocate message queue resource; post-crash/fault recovery shutdown system disabled."

 

The server was hung, so I dumped the server call stacks, for futher debug purposes (from option 16 from the WRKDOMSVR command).  A consistent theme I saw in the call stacks for the threads that were hung was:

 

QDOMINO801   LIBNOTES     OSSEM        0000000001   OSLockReadFRWSemWithInfo                        
QDOMINO801   LIBNOTES     OSSEM        0000000032   OSLockReadFRWSemInt                             
QDOMINO801   LIBNOTES     OSSEM        0000000001   WaitOnNativeSemaphoreCounted                    
QDOMINO801   LIBNOTES     OSSEM        0000000025   WaitOnNativeSemaphore                           
QDOMINO801   LIBNOTES     OSSEM        0000000017   WaitForThreadSem                                
QSYS         QP0WPTHR     QP0WCOND     0000000049   pthread_cond_wait                               
QSYS         QP0WPINT     QP0WSCOND    0000000086   wait__20Qp0wPthreadConditionFP7Qp0wTcbP9Qp0wMutex

 

After dumping the call stacks, I ended the Domino server, *CNTRLD, of course.  This did nothing, the server was hung.  I next did a *IMMED end on my test server.  The interesting thing is that the status of the Domino server showed *ENDED, however when I used option 9 to look at the active server jobs, I saw that the Server job was stil active. 

 

The console was now showing "- Child stopped by signal -1". 

 

I tried ending the server with the *IMMED option, and received error LNT0922. 

 

Message: Error 11 has occured trying to end the Domino sever, DOMTEST1, the error code is 11.

Cause: Error trying to end server DOMTEST1 immediately.  Subsystem is QUSRNOTES/DOMTEST1.

Recovery: Save this job log and contact your service representative.

 

Well, that would be me!!  At this point I had to do an ENDJOBABN to get the Server job ended.  This did the trick. 

 

Interestingly enough, when I tried to do a CHGDOMSVR command on the server with the server and the subsystem ended, I received a CPD680B message.

 

Message: Error detected in prompt override program command string.

Cause: An error was detected in the command string created in the prompt override program QNNINPOP in QDOMINO801.  Processing of the command will not be affected by this error.

Recovery: After prompting is complete, see the previously listed messages in the job log to determine the cause of the error or see the CL topic in the Information Center book for more informaiton on prompt override programs.

 

Override what?!?  I checked the job log and saw these messages:

 

Character 's' not valid following string ' 'Kim'        '.

Character ' ' ' not valid following string 'Frankie      '.

A matching apostrophe not found.

A matching parenthesis not found.

Command not valid.

 

What it was complaining about was the title of my server, which is "Kim's Test Domino Server on Frankie".  Interestingly enough, the CFGDOMSVR command had no issue with me putting this in for the server's title when I configured it, however the CHGDOMSR command wouldn't accept it.

 

I was able to get the autostart parameter changed by qualifying the specific parameters I needed on the CHGDOMSVR command:

 

CHGDOMSVR SERVER(domtest1) AUTOSTART(*yes)

 

The moral of the story is never issue the CHGDOMSVR command against a Domino server when it's just starting.  The normal function of the CHGDOMSVR command is that it will let you change this paramter while the server is active.  The trick is that the server needs to be actually started when the command is issued.  There is a glitch when the server is starting where this command gets really messed up. 

 I received a call from a customer this morning saying noone could access their mail files.  The really strange thing about the situation was that the log.nsf, names.nsf, ... could be opened.  It was just a problem with the mail files.  When users tried to open their mail files, they received the following error message.

 

"Server Error: Device is Busy/In Use"

 

The console showed messages like this for mail files the router was trying to deliver mail to:

 

"Error delivering to servername/domain mail/xxxxxxxxxxxx.nsf; Device is Busy/In Use"

 

I dumped the server call stacks for all Domino jobs on that server and the job call stacks for any jobs I thought could be suspect.  I looked through the output and didn't find anything suspicious.  Next I invoked the QP0FPTOS api to identify if there were any IFS locks on the objects. The output showed there indeed were IFS locks on the files.  I issued the RLSIFSLCK command against a few mail files.  This did no good, the objects remained locked.  The only time the RLSIFSLCK command cannot release a lock is if it is a directory lock or if there is a save lock. 

 

This tipped me off to look at the job log for the save job.  This customer takes their Domino servers down every evening, saves the data directories, and then starts the servers after the save is complete.  The save output showed that the first Domino server had been saved fine, however the save job for the second server, the server we were having this issue with, was still active.

 

Once the save job was ended, the problem went away, no server restart was required.  The mail files are able to be accessed again and the customer is very happy.

 

Now it's time to get outside and enjoy this beautiful weather since it's the weekend!

If you are looking for information related to the program conversion on System i that happens when upgrading to V6R1, you may want to check out some recent articles I wrote.  The intention was to have one article, but it ended up being too big to fit in the space available in the magazine.  The compromise was to split it into the main article included in the magazine and two web exclusives.  Here are links to all three articles:

 

"Preparing for V6R1, What to Expect During Your Conversion"

 

"The Impact on Domino"

 

"Tips for Working With the V6R1 Conversion Tool"

 

One of the biggest gotchas, IMO, is that the program conversion tool doesn't pick up the Domino libraries by default when estimating how long the program conversion times for libraries will take.  This would be a nasty one for customer to miss, as conversion of the Domino libraries can take over an hour in some worse case scenarios.  Even worse, if the customer doesn't realize that Domino gets converted because the tool doesn't report it by default, they may not find out about the program conversion until they start the Domino servers after the upgrade to V6R1.  Because of the time required to convert the Domino libraries, the server most likely won't start and could produce some strange errors.  This would not be a fun upgrade experience. 

 

Hopefully you will find these articles helpful in planning any upgrades to V6R1.