OL Connector 2003/Domino 6

[Bill Bailey]

I just downloaded the new version of the Outlook Connector
for IBM Lotus Domino. I am using it with Outlook 2003 in
a Notes 6.0.3 environment.

The connector seems to work well - for example, I have
been able to compose and send formatted mail to other
Notes users and they receive it pretty much intact
(colored text does not come over but bold, italics and
underline do). However, the Send/Receive Status indicator
NEVER disappears - it stays at 91% - and network activity
never stops while I am connected, even when there is no
mail to send or receive.

One thing I did shortly after installing the Connector was
try to open another Notes user's calendar. Network
activity proceeded continuously after doing this until I
shutdown Outlook several hours later. The calendar never
did open. I eventually unchecked the checkbox for this
user's calendar, which I thought would stop the process of
trying to retrieve the calendar data. So, I'm wondering
if this action caused a problem with the Connector that it
still is trying to recover from.

Thanks in advance for any assistance.

 

[Balaji Hariharan [MSFT]]

Bill,
Is your local store completely synced? To know that, just open Outlook and
the status bar would tell if it downloading stuff automatically (best way to
sync is the automatic sync when in Online mode).
As you know, one need not hit a Send/REceive to download/send mails but the
automatic sync process would take care of it. But incase you need to
manually sync the store, then make use of Tools > Send/REceive > Syncrhonize
Domino Mailbox . This shows the exact percentages of the process.

For the second issue, we cache the calendar entries while opening someone
else's calendar. Incase he/she has a lot of recurrance patterns etc., this
process might take a little long time to complete. But you should be able to
open the calendar though. I also assume that you can open the other person's
calendar from Notes Client. Can you elaborate more on the steps to reproduce
the bug?

Hope that helps.
Thanks
//Balaji Hariharan

 

[Bill Bailey]

Balaji,

Thanks for your reply. Prior to reading your message, I
removed the Connector and then re-installed it. I'm still
seeing the same problem on the "Send/Receive" status
indicator "sticking". It didn't start until I actually
opened the "Domino Mailbox" folder in the folder list. As
soon as I did this, Outlook began a "Send/Receive"
operation. At this point the % complete status stuck,
first at 75% (for about 3 minutes) and then 91% (for at
least 10 minutes).

I cancelled the Send/Receive from the Outlook status bar
and then performed a "Tools | Send/Receive | Synchronize
Domino Mailbox" command prior to opening the folder in the
folder list. A dialog box titled "Synchronizing Mailbox"
appeared and stayed on-screen for over 30 minutes, never
showing more than 0% complete. The text "Sending changes
to the server" appeared above a blank progress bar while
this was going on. There was network activity showing in
my Windows XP system tray the entire time this process was
underway and I had no other network-using programs running
at the time. The Outlook Connector status bar continued
to show "Syncronizing entire mailbox" the entire time.
For info, my Domino mailbox is essentially empty, as I've
never used it. There are perhaps a half-dozen items in
the Sent Items folder, but I have no problems viewing them.

I haven't tried to open another user's Domino calendar
since I re-installed. I would prefer to work on one
problem at a time <grin> and getting the basic connector
functionality working is my first priority. I can live
without the calendar-open feature but not the e-mail
connectivity.

Thanks in advance for any help you can provide.

Regards,
Bill

 

[Bill Bailey]

Balaji,

Perhaps I was too hasty in my previous post. After about
30 minutes of "sticking", the Send/Receive finally
completed and the status bar showed "Complete". Also, a
re-try of the Sync Domino Mailbox worked in about 15
seconds.

One question: a Send/Receive operation now appears to
occur every minute. I assume this is the background sync
of the Domino Mailbox because my Tools | Options | Mail
Setup | Send/Receive shows a schedule of 10 minutes for
the "All Accounts" group. Is there any way to decrease
the frequency of the syncing? Should I even worry about
it?

 

[Bill Bailey]

Balaji,

Now that the send/receive operation seems to be working
well, I tried to open the calendars of several Notes
users. In one case, I was successful and the Outlook
calendar showed the user's appointments; in another, the
Outlook calendar remained blank. In both cases, I was
able to open the calendars of the users and see all their
appointments in the Notes client. Is there some setting
that needs to be made on the Notes side to enable viewing
by the Outlook Connector???

 

[Balaji Hariharan [MSFT]]

About the Send/Receive appearing often:
Is Outlook Connector for Domino the primary provider in your Outlook
profile, if not we recommend to do so? To know that,
1. Go to Tools > E-mail Account and click on "View or change e-mail" and
press Next.
2. In the list of email providers, is there "Default" marked against Outlook
Connector for Domino. If not set it as default
3. Also, under the "Deliver new e-mail" is it pointing to "Domino Mailbox -
<user name>". If not do that too.
4. This might cause e-mails from Pop3 accounts to be delivered to your
Domino store and the work-around is to create a Rule that pushes it to a
PST.
Hope that solves the problem. Btw, this is very normal and you need not
worry about it.

Thanks
//Balaji Hariharan

 

[Balaji Hariharan [MSFT]]

Bill,
Glad it works for you. There isn't any extra setting that is to be done
from Notes Client to enable Outlook users. Nothing at all!!!
From Outlook, as you know, you can use Tools > Delegates to give delegates
permissions for your inbox
Thanks
//Balaji Hariharan

 

[Vin Das]

Balaji/Bill,

I have just discovered your thread today and am very grateful for the
insights that you've shared. Thank you so very much!

I'm also using the Outlook 2003 Connector for Domino, and the version
of Domino I'm connecting to is R5.

My question is I would like to know the possible cause for the error
observed in the following scenario:

1. I send an e-mail message using Outlook 2003 with Connector for
Domino with an attachment (MS WORD document)
2. The recipient is a member of my organization (ie is also using
Domino R5) but their e-mail client is Lotus Notes iWeb, not Outlook
2003.
3. They can read the text of the e-mail but when they launch the
attachment from iNotes, the attachment contains a bunch of garbage
characters.
4. The same garbage characters appear even when they save the
attachment first, then try to launch it.

Additionally, I suspect the connector because other users that use
Outlook but connect to Domino using a POP connection do not report the
same problem.

Do you have any suggestions with regards to settings in Domino, or
Outlook that I might try in order to fix this problem?

Sincerely,
Vin

 

[Balaji Hariharan [MSFT]]

Vin,
Can you test the following to make sure if this is indeed a connector's
problem?
Send an attachment from Connector and read the mail from a POP3 Client and
Notes Client. Check if that is fine. If yes, then we can eliminate that only
when the sender is Connector and receiver is iNotes, the problem happens.
Thanks for the help
//Balaji Hariharan

 

[Dave]

Guys - I'm also having trouble with the send/receive status hanging. I
have been able to download mail and send mail but more often than not
the send/receive status stalls on 97% and stays like that for 30 mins
or so - or until I decide to close down Outlook and open it up again.

Any help appreciated.

Thanks

Dave

 

[Dave]

Guys - I'm also having trouble with the send/receive status hanging. I
have been able to download mail and send mail but more often than not
the send/receive status stalls on 97% and stays like that for 30 mins
or so - or until I decide to close down Outlook and open it up again.

Any help appreciated.

Thanks

Dave

Does anyone have any suggestions at all?

Dave

 

[Bill Bailey]

Dave,

My office assistant had the same problem until she changed the frequency
that Outlook performs an automatic send/receive. She initially had it set
at 5 minutes (Tools | Options | Mail Setup | Send/Receive). At this
frequency, it appeared that the Outlook Connector wasn't finishing, so
another send/receive would start before the last one finished. She
increased the auto send/receive frequency to 10 or 15 minutes (don't
remember which) and the problem disappeared.

The other thing I did that seemed to help when I had this problem was to
uninstall then re-install the Connector.

Hope this helps.

 

[Mavrik]

ps my e-mail address is:

(e-mail address removed)