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Problems on Windows 7

2013-09-11
2014-01-09
  • Krasimir Cholakov

    Hello,

    I am using Lotus Notes 8.5 on Windows 7. After installing LNMail on attempt to start it I get error message:

    "The programm can't start because nnotes.dll is missing from your computer. Try reinstalling the program to fix the problem."

    The missing .dll itself is in "C:\Program Files (x86)\IBM\Lotus\Notes" and when I copy it to the LNMail installation folder it does not complain anymore, but then it complains for another one .dll and so fort. So I tried a bit hacky solution by installing LNMail in "C:\Program Files (x86)\IBM\Lotus\Notes".
    All .dlls are found now but it complains that it can not find "notes.ini".

    Is there a way to workaround these problems?

    Thanks.

     

    Last edit: Krasimir Cholakov 2013-09-11
  • Sebastian Walderich

    Hello Krasimir,

    I'm sorry for the inconvenience. Unfortunately, I didn't get much feedback, so I wasn't aware of this problem. And therefore I do also not have a simple solution.

    On my system, the Lotus Notes directory is on the Windows path, therefore the DLLs are available everywhere. Also the "notes.ini" is located under the user's local data directory. If it can't be found there, the registry is searched.

    So one temporary solution would be to either let LNMail reside in the Lotus Notes directory for now, or add the Notes directory to the Windows path. Then go to the registry and add a string key under "HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/Lotus/Notes/[notes-version]/NotesIniPath" with the location of your "notes.ini". LNMail uses the last [notes-version] it finds.

    But I will for sure fix the problem. Please be patient, I will also inform you, as soon as I have a working version available.

     
  • Krasimir Cholakov

    Hi Sebastian,

    thank you very much. I will try to make LNMail work with your solution.
    LNMail looks exactly what I need and looks really promising.

    Thanks again.

     
  • Krasimir Cholakov

    Hi again,

    I can not find "HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/Lotus/Notes/[notes-version]" in my registry (Windows 7 Professional 64-bit (6.1, Build 7601) Service Pack 1).

    so I am not sure where exactly should I create the string key.

    I attach a screenshot.

     

    Last edit: Krasimir Cholakov 2013-09-12
  • Sebastian Walderich

    LNMail actually doesn't care, what "notes-version" it finds and if it's plausible. You can just create a new String in your "Installer" directory with the Name "NotesIniPath" and the full path to your "notes.ini" as value. The type should be "REG_SZ".

    I just read, that this "NotesIniPath" can also be located directly under "HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/Lotus/Notes". Can you check, if this is true on your machine? Then I can simply extend the check to this directory.

     
  • Krasimir Cholakov

    If I create it under: "HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/Lotus/Notes/Installer" it works fine,
    but if I create it under "HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/Lotus/Notes" it does not work. It can't find the ini.

    When LNMail starts it displays window with progress bar saying: "Synchronyzing data with server". What is this for? When it reaches 70% the application stops working.

     

    Last edit: Krasimir Cholakov 2013-09-12
  • Sebastian Walderich

    1. The "HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/Lotus/Notes" directory is not yet searched by LNMail. I just thought that this is used on your side.
    2. I found the following passage in the Lotus Notes API documentation: http://www-12.lotus.com/ldd/doc/tools/cplus/2.01/lncpp201.nsf/ad733ebc02a961d6852566120048ad9e/538c147d19ecd9e9852567ad0062a85e?OpenDocument
      So it seems that it is not possible at all to workaround the missing DLL problem. It has to be in the Windows search path.
    3. The "Synchronizing data with server" says, that LNMail reads out all mail messages from the server. After this, all necessary information is held in RAM. Like that the handling of the messages is a lot faster than always asking the server for it.
    4. What does that mean "the application stops working"? Is the progress dialog freezing and does not move anymore, or is the application crashing completely?
     
  • Krasimir Cholakov

    On 1) not a problem for me because I can also create it under "HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/Lotus/Notes/Installer"

    On 2) not a problem too, cause adding Lotus Notes installation folder in Windows path is as simple as few clicks.

    On 3) Hmm, is it really a good idea to hold all emails in RAM? I have thousands of emails...

    On 4) The application seem to crashed. I got message 'Application stopped working' and the option stop or report problem or something like that when loading the data from server was around 70%.

     

    Last edit: Krasimir Cholakov 2013-09-12
  • Sebastian Walderich

    Not the whole message is stored in RAM, only the important parts. The message's body for example is still retrieved from the server, whenever necessary. But for filtering and sorting, the subject, date and so on is kept in RAM.

    Can you do me a favor and try starting the debug version of LNMail (http://sourceforge.net/projects/lnmail/files/LNMail%200.7/LNMail_dbg.exe/download), i just uploaded? With that you should get a more detailed error description. Because right now, I have no clue, what happens on your side.

    If no message appears, you can also try to download DebugView (http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896647.aspx). This small tool shows the debugging information of Windows-Applications. With that, I hopefully can narrow the search for the problem you get.

     
  • Krasimir Cholakov

    Hi Sebastian,

    I got the attached error message when I attempt to install the debug version.
    I will try the DebugView later when I have more free time available.

    My main reason for searching for alternative of Lotus Notes official desktop app is that it is too heavy. Especially when I have to have it running all the day side-by-side by the other applications I actually use for my work. The other thing is that when I do not click anything on it for some time it starts to shuffle.

    So I am searching for alternative application which takes less resources from my computer to run, but it is also important to start fast..at least for me. So is it possible to reduce more the important parts of the emails so that it can start immediately and probably then starts loading more data in background or by attempt to open and email?

    Thanks.

     

    Last edit: Krasimir Cholakov 2013-09-12
  • Sebastian Walderich

    You don't have to install the debug version. Just copy it to the LNMail installation directory, where "LNMail.exe" resides and start it from there.

    Once you get the application to start, it is possible to configure, that the message information is buffered locally. Like that you can start LNMail quite fast with the old mails available directly. Then LNMail downloads messages, which where not available since it was closed the last time, and then it starts a full synchronization in the background to be able to recognize deleted or moved messages. I hope this will also work for you and is fast enough. This setting can be found in the Preferences dialog under the tab "Lotus Notes", by selecting the option "Cache data for faster startup".

     
  • Krasimir Cholakov

    Thanks, will test as soon as I can.

     

    Last edit: Krasimir Cholakov 2013-09-12
  • Krasimir Cholakov

    Attached is the message I get when running in debug mode. It appears at the time the application crashes.
    I guess I have to try DebugView...?

     

    Last edit: Krasimir Cholakov 2013-09-12
  • Sebastian Walderich

    Sorry for the late answer. I didn't have access to Notes over the extended weekend. The message you provided is probably coming from a NULL string. I added some assertions to the code and replaced the last debug version, so you still don't need DebugView for now. Can you please try to download the debug file again (http://sourceforge.net/projects/lnmail/files/LNMail%200.7/LNMail_dbg.exe/download), copy it over the one in your LNMail directory and try to start it? Hopefully you will get a more detailed message which I can then work with.

     
  • Krasimir Cholakov

    Hi Sebastian,

    attached it the message using the latest LNMail_dbg.exe. I hope it will be helpful.
    However that is not my only problem.
    The loading of the emails takes more that 5 min, which is not very convenient.
    I am looking for something which is much faster at start up and much lightweight than Lotus Notes, so if LNMail can offer that, it will be great.

     

    Last edit: Krasimir Cholakov 2013-11-13
  • Sebastian Walderich

    If LNMail is once opened, it is possible to select an option for caching your mails. With that it is possible to start much faster.

     

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