Problem: Lotus confirms Crash identified in Notes, Domino and MTA with date conversions

Products affected: Domino Server 5.x, Domino Server 4.6x, Domino Server 4.5.7, Domino Server 4.5.6, Notes Client 5.x, Notes Client 4.6x, Notes Client 4.5.7, Notes Client 4.5.6

A crash occurring with dates following the year 2000 and prior to 1950 has been identified. This crash has been reported in some cases as follows:  When using Simple Action agents to send a message that includes a copy of a document  When using the NotesDocument.RendertoRTItem method in LotusScript  With the Domino 4.6x SMTP MTA 

Link to story:

http://www.support.lotus.com/sims2.nsf/c7835bf039c01dc285256688006fae9b/35b578b76f3ec78e85256859007173ec?OpenDocument

-- Carl Jenkins (Somewherepress@aol.com), January 07, 2000

Answers

Thanks for the post Carl. =)

-- Dee (T1Colt556@aol.com), January 07, 2000.

That explains it! We've been butting our heads against the wall trying to install 4.6x SMTP MTA for the last two days. Thanks Carl!

-- RPGman (tripix@olypen.com), January 07, 2000.

Crashes the SMTP gateway, eh? Ouch. Nothing like having Internet mail delayed/undeliverable to put customers in a really good mood...

-- DeeEmBee (macbeth1@pacbell.net), January 07, 2000.

Hmm, my 4.6.1c server and clients have been working flawlessly. I'm running NT 4.0 SP3. I have background agents working fine. But I noticed that an app that uses a lot of date functions is behaving a little screwy.

For Lotus programmers out there take a look at this:

@Text(@Now;"D0T0S2") returns: 01/22/2000 06:55:02PM as of about 5 mins ago and my PC shows the date as 01/07/2000 3:42pm, 2:42pm 1:42pm 12:42pm (depending on the time zone I choose)

BTW for those of you wondering why Lotus e-mail is important, its because they have about 50m users at this time, about double MS and is the largest client server e-mail system in the world, with the most large (i.e. over 25,000 users) sites period. And it rocks.

-- Interested Spectator (is@the_ring.side), January 07, 2000.

Spectator -

You betcha! When IBM bought Lotus, they made sure that moving all those OfficeVision and PROFS users over to Notes was as easy as possible. Add in all the cc:Mail sites and the occasional disgruntled MS Mail/Exchange/whatever customer and the Notes user base grew like kudzu.

Once a site has made the investment in a good Notes architecture, it's amazing how much it can improve their messaging and information sharing processes. Uh oh, I'm sounding like a zealot. Sorry. 8-}

-- DeeEmBee (macbeth1@pacbell.net), January 07, 2000.

Please translate geeks. Is this important? Can it be fixed easily?

Thanks.

-- George (jvilches@sminter.com.ar), January 07, 2000.

George -

"geek"? Ooooooh, you sweet-talkin' thang, you. My truly techie friends would die laughing if they heard I'd been called a "geek", but thanks for the compliment.

According to the Knowledge Base document referenced above, the fix for this is already in the pipeline. I'd have to say that this bug certainly has potential for impact on the bigger Notes sites, but nothing earth-shattering.

Chime in here, RPGman and others. Having the SMTP gateway die ever so often is certainly a major pain in the neck, but are there more serious impacts from this "date bug"?

-- DeeEmBee (macbeth1@pacbell.net), January 07, 2000.

George:

If do not use Lotus Notes

Then Ignore Problem

Else If you can send and recieve e-mail

Then Ignore Problem

Else Check with your company's sys admins to see what it means for you.

-- Interested Spectator (is@the_ring.side), January 07, 2000.

DeeEmBee:

Read the following if you want to see how much exchange sucks.

http://www.macintouch. com/exchange.html

I know it's on a mac site, and its from 98, but lets not forget all the issues listed were on the exchange server side (as I recall that only works on NT :)) and not forget how much MS was telling us that exchange was going to drive Notes out of site at during this time.

And for just a sampler to whet your appetite:

Just an interesting note. I work for one of the many branches of GE. GE is one of, (if not the), largest companies in the world. GE is also Microsoft's largest installation of MS Exchange for its internal and external e-mail. Our internet e-mail has been mostly down for about a month now! The problem goes all the way down to our Atlanta offices (I think that is where our main exchange servers are). I think it is insane that the largest company in the world, using the largest software company's e-mail software, has HUGE problems and can't get internet based e-mail.

-----

I too work for a major GE division (GE Capital Assurance). We use Microsoft Exchange as well and our e-mail server has been down over the majority of the last 2 weeks, from Virginia all the way down to Orlando. It's amazing that one of the largest companies in the world doesn't realize what their missing by not exposing themselves to the MacOS platform. Just my 2 cents...

-----

Speaking of the largest companies in the world, when I was working at Boeing last year there was a big push to get everybody (~250,000) on Microsoft Exchange (often referred to in people's email as "the product whose name expresses the user's fondest desire"). It was heralded as a big step forward despite the fact that the committee responsible for choosing the email program did not choose Exchange, and the fact that all of us running Internet SMTP mail had been doing so happily and reliably for a long time. It was generally believed to be a Microsoft brokered thing (the wording on the requirements stated that it had to have calendering *integrated* in the program, hmmm...). Apparently our opinions didn't matter in the least.

Suffice it to say, Boeing had the same problems GE had. It got so bad at one point that it was (seriously) suggested that meeting notices be distributed on paper, too many announcements were being received well after the event had occured. Multiple day delays were not uncommon on intra-office mail.

-- Interested Spectator (is@the_ring.side), January 07, 2000.

Domino/Notes is our platform of choice. It's awful.

But then, there's Microsoft. Compared to Exchnage and the half-dozen other MS apps I would have to hard-wire integrate to do what we do now, Domino/Notes is nearly perfect. I leverage two programmers with Notes to do the work of, say, six MS programmers (seriously).

This is a nasty little bug but nothing terribly serious - can be fixed in a day or two.

-- BigDog (BigDog@duffer.com), January 07, 2000.

Spectator -

Thanks for the link. I heard the partially-muffled screams from colleagues who were trying to deploy Exchange at big sites (some of them with 5,000+ users) and getting the crap kicked out of them by the customers. We just sat there, running Domino: sharing documents, creating workflow apps, and oh yeah, handling e-mail with minimal problems.

That remark about "the product whose name expresses the user's fondest desire" cracked me up. MS is very good at some things, but messaging ain't necessarily one of 'em. They apparently arm-twisted quite a few sites into deploying Exchange, and it was the messaging support personnel who bore the brunt of the "executive level decision".

-- DeeEmBee (macbeth1@pacbell.net), January 07, 2000.

BigDog:

I rest my case. What more can I say, you've said it all (although I don't understand how can you say Notes is awfull and perfect almost in the same sentence?).

At the end of they day getting your work done, getting your apps built, as quickly and cheaply as possible is all that really counts. MS thinks looking pretty on the screen is important. I don't remember any customer using my company because the apps I use are pretty on the screen, but I do remember customer's appreciating the good service I was able to provide because Notes let me do things not possible with any other DB.

-- Interested Spectator (is@the_ring.side), January 07, 2000.

DeeEmBee:

You call 5,000 big for Exchange? Notes has been deployed as a rock solid solution in many companies with over 100,000 employees. Lay that one on anybody who thinks Exchange is ready for prime time :)

-- Interested Spectator (is@the_ring.side), January 07, 2000.