Uh Clem's Admin World

The new version of the Sametime for Blackberry app (officially called "Blackberry Instant Messaging for Lotus Sametime" ) came out earlier this month.  When I downloaded it I noticed the download page had a warning that this version (V2.2) ONLY supported Blackberry devices with the 4.7x device software.  You still had to use V2.1x for any devices using 4.6x or earlier device software.

So I tried to install both versions on the BES for wireless deployment.  If you have ever tried this you will quickly learn that the BES doesn't like this.  You get a message something like "Multiple Instances of the Application Were Found".  Fortunately RIM tech support had a work around.  You can find it in this KB article (KB15901).  Essentially it has you create a second share where you can put the second version.  The workaround is very straight forward.

I'm still trying to figure out why RIM would release a new version that was not compatible with older device software knowing the limitation of BES where you can easily install 2 versions of the same app.  Maybe this if fixed in later versions of BES (I'm on 4.1.6).

My previous post mentioned some issues (read bugs) I encountered with DWA8 Contact List.   Here are the details (btw... I'm using 8.0.2 Domino and mail template):

1) The biggest user complaint is that it does not support selecting a group name to start a group chat.  The "chat" option is greyed out.  Tech Support did say this is a bug and they will get me an SPR.  In the meantime they offered a workaround to open a 1-to-1 chat then invite others.  Yeah....right.
2)  The DWA8 Contact List does not support nested public groups.  Oh you will get the names of the users in the sub-groups, but they won't be in alphabetical order.  It will list the users of the first sub-group first, then the second sub-group, and so on.  This is quite confusing for the user when the list are long.
3) The up/down scroll of the contact list is much slower than DWA7's Contact List.  It will pause for several seconds when retrieving the next part of the list.

As I roll out the Notes 8.0.2 client to users they are discovering the great feature of the user info pop-up when you hover over a name in the Sametime contact list.   Some are discovering their own info is wrong, so we are getting requests all of a sudden to update user's contact info in the Notes directory.   I did not anticipate this unexpected user need.

Some of the user contact info we updated a day ago, but the new info was not appearing in the ST contact list pop-ups.  A user can right-click on a name and select "Refresh Person Info" to force the update.  But my question is why hasn't the server performed the update after a day?  What is the trigger for the server to refresh all this info on its own?   Is it a ST server restart, or what?

I upgraded a handful of DWA users this week as a pilot for my company-wide upgrade to 8.0.2.   Some of the users complained that the names in their IM contact list were not sorted in some of the groups.  It turns out that those groups happened to be nested groups.  The DWA IM contact list will show the first sub-group sorted, THEN the second sub-group sorted beneith the first.   If there are multiple groups in the top-level group, the name list looks a mess.

Also if the group is nested 3 levels deep the group doesn't even expand in the contact list, and there is no "+" next to the group to expand it.

IBM tech support referred me to technote 1223002 which says DWA 6.5 doesn't support nested groups, but they said it is still not fixed.

So for now my only option is to tell my users to use the sub-groups explicitly.

This morning I sent an IM announcement to my users from my 8.0.2 integrated ST client.  Ever since then all my chat windows start off with the text of the announcement I sent, regardless of whether I initiate the chat or someone else does.   It also shows in the chat logs.  

I had to close Notes and restart to get it to clear out.  Anyone seen this behavior?

I opened a PMR this morning about some Notes 8.0.2 client issues I've been having.   Some of my test installs are hanging after login.   Most of my test installs were getting multiple Sametime interfaces.  I blogged about both of these.

IBM tells me they are aware of these problems and they are planning to release a CCH (Cummulative Client Hotfix) hopefully later this week.  They told me it will show up in Passport Advantage under something like "8.0.2 Revised".

They also gave me a work around for the hanging issue.  They told me to try the notes.ini parameter enable_early_authentication=0.   I'm off to test this now.  I'll let you know how it works.

Here are some of the SPR's they are targeting for this CCH:
KUMA7FWPXR -  Prompt to log into basic client on clean install.
TMDS7HWT9G -  Getting multiple Sametime login interfaces.
LKIM7JCMB6 - Client hanging after login.

Is this reminiscent of the 5.0.3 release? 

I loaded 8.0.2 on my laptop yesterday.  The upgrade went smoothly although I'm still amazed it takes 10 minutes and the progress bar goes across like 50 times.

I'm having a small issue with the integrated Sametime.  I'm noticing that the floating ST buddy list window (as in the R7 client) keeps loading.  The integrated version also is connecting.

I'm getting the following error in the status bar:

You cannot use IBM Workplace instant messaging because Notes is already logged on to the IBM Lotus Sametime server.

What?  "IBM Workplace instant messaging"??  Hey IBM,  I think you need to scrub your error messages a little better.

Anyway,  my upgrade was from 8.0.1, but I also noticed the old, floating buddy list window is still popping up on upgrades from 7.0.3.