StartingBlockComputing

OOps... The high cost of e-mail autocomplete.

nospam@example.com (Eric Parsons) — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 17:26:34 -0700

In this article on news.com, the writer aptly points out that Autocorrect, (and auto spell check for that matter) do NOT make up for prudent human checking of the facts. I know I've had this particular case, usually blamed on the software which we don't know to be either Outlook or Notes, opened a number of times when the client sending the email should have dbl checked before hitting the send button.

I sometimes blame Notes for making things too easy. Spell checking catches the bad mspellin's but not the differences in that thing over their. (Yes, it's spelled correctly, no, it's not the correct usage of THERE.)

The article points out just how dangerous it is to rely on the software to make decisions that only humans can make. So to Emily, Lazlo, and all the others out there sending personal messages to me a gmail, test the waters, and ask the recipient if they are indeed the person you think they are. Personally, I ignore misdirected messages, usually after a hearty laugh.

And at the top of the list....

nospam@example.com (Eric Parsons) — Sat, 15 Dec 2007 18:37:29 -0700

...attempt to perform folder operation on non folder note

Amazing that Lotus/IBM claims this to be impossible, yet it makes it to the top of the search list. Seems it's a bigger issue than first reported.

program to make inotes work with blackberry

nospam@example.com (Eric Parsons) — Sun, 25 Nov 2007 18:43:44 -0700

From recent websearches...

program to make inotes work with blackberry

... pretty sure that's called a browser. Now, the style sheet may be a bit to figure out.

idea jam

nospam@example.com (Eric Parsons) — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 16:09:57 -0700

So, Bruce Elgort sends me a teaser for idea jam, a new site apparently for the Domino Community.

Good Idea. Go visit, register, and use it!

$Inbox woes

nospam@example.com (Eric Parsons) — Sun, 28 Oct 2007 06:41:10 -0700

Checking the Search hits so far, I'm seeing a lot of Blackberry hits and will address these in the coming week. I wanted to get started repopulating the site with something near and dear to my heart.

I have moved from working with a normal sized enterprise to one that is fairly large. One of my first major issues was investigating a situation where a client would stop "receiving" mail, although the router showed it moving fine. Later in the day, or maybe another day or so, mail would start to backup in the queue with the message "attempt to perform folder operation on non folder note" showing in the console (log file).

The short term fix was removal of the Inbox, refresh the design to recreate the inbox, then life would be good for a few minutes. The issue was reported to the support organization (you know which one). They started pointing to a duplicate Inbox, which in the long run, came to be true.

However! They pushed for an investigation to the design. It had to be in the design, they insisted to my recollection. Several iterations of the issue made the client every more insistent on a fix. (Amazing that our clients actually want consistent email, but that's another issue).

The issue revolves around the fact that the Router (apparently still so today) looks for a Note named ($Inbox). The Router doesn't look for a Design Note, just a Note. Don't try this at home unless you want to break things. Take a simple Note (message, todo, reply, doesn't matter), add a field named "$Name" and give it a value of "($Inbox)". Save to your mail file, and watch. The first phase, you will stop receiving new messages to your Inbox, and only see them in All Documents. Slowly (depending on the stream) you will start backing up messages in the mail.box(s) on the server. You will see the message "attempt to perform folder operation on non folder note" as the router attempts to deliver to the simple Note that you created.

So, the fix? Get a copy of NotesPeek, and search for $Inbox. Locate the Note, using the information provided (subject, recipients, etc.) Write down any recipients as they are most likely broken also. Remove the Note, remembering to remove it from the trash also.

Report the issue to support! Although they have provided a hotfix, and promised it fixed, I still see it in the wild.

So, who had five days?

nospam@example.com (Eric Parsons) — Sun, 28 Oct 2007 05:34:40 -0700

Yes, the first wave of blog spam is up and running. I'm really amazed that it took this long.

Coming along

nospam@example.com (Eric Parsons) — Sun, 21 Oct 2007 18:28:51 -0700

I think I've gotten all the pages working again, although there are still a number of goodies still laying in wait for me. Most notably, the previous blog entries are still MIA, and the knowledge base was in need of upgrade and re-enablement.

Let me know if anything isn't fit for you.

Coming Back?

nospam@example.com (Eric Parsons) — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 17:19:05 -0700

I wanted to apologize to anyone still out there reading. I know it's been a while. I'm currently in the process of overhauling the site, moving it to a different hosting company, and I promise to scour the previous comments for anything remotely related to sanity.

I do have new stories to tell, new technical mumbo jumbo, and hope to get back on the technical horse for a while.

Thanks for staying with me.

Eric

Do Not Attempt this at home (Republished)

nospam@example.com (Eric Parsons) — Thu, 06 Jul 2006 21:00:00 -0700

I’ve been tracking down an interesting issue for the past couple of weeks. I guess I’m losing my touch, because after finding the problem, I’m pounding my head against the wall to get some intelligence back in there. So here’s the whole story.

Seems that messages are routed from the mail.box into a particular mail file, then a process moves them into the ($Inbox) folder. The client sees this as the magic of the message being delivered to the Inbox. Each mail file can have one (and only one) agent with the trigger of “Before New mail arrives.” I believe the agent triggers after the message is in the file (consider being in the All Documents view) and before it’s moved into the Inbox. I don’t know that I have hard evidence of that, just a strong feeling. But I digress.

The process that moves the message into the Inbox (some would say that’s the router), appears to look for a field named “$Name” with a value of ($Inbox) on a Note. Now I should take a side trip here, to mention/remind that all entities in a Notes database are notes. Some are design notes, some profile documents, and others regular documents. It seems that when a document gets created with such a field, the process gets confused and will produce the message “Attempt to perform a folder operation on a non-folder note.” I started looking for the issue when the router refused to deliver messages to this mail box, but I also have now seen this where it will deliver, but not place in the inbox.

So, nearly thirty days with an issue open, and I get instructed to use NotesPeek to search under the covers. Doh! I could have saved a whole bunch of time and effort, but didn’t even cross my mind to use NotesPeek. (ARGGgggg).

So to bring a terribly long story to a close. If you get the message “Attempt to perform a folder operation on a non-folder note.” you might want to use NotesPeek to identify all the documents with a $Name field with the value of ($Inbox). Remove all but the real inbox. Create a temporary folder, and move all the Inbox documents there. Delete the real inbox since it’s probably “hosed” anyway. Next, refresh the design so a new inbox comes into the mail file. Move all the inbox documents back, and test.