Repeated Crash Protection for Lotus Notes Traveler 

Overview

Some customers have reported an uncommon, but highly disruptive scenario in which a particular Notes document is corrupted or contains non-standard content that will cause the Domino Server API to crash the Lotus Traveler server when trying to process the particular document. The problem is amplified by the fact that Lotus Traveler will detect the failed sync and retry the document once restarted. The problem generally resolves itself when the failing document is deleted by the end user, moved to a non-syncing folder, or simply moves outside the filter window for the particular user. However the problem can be quite disruptive to the Lotus Traveler service until resolved.

To minimize Lotus Traveler server outage a repeating crash prevention feature has been added. This feature is available in Lotus Traveler 8.5.2.3 and later releases. Essentially this feature will detect a repeat crash scenario for a particular document and ban the document from being processed by the server. The document will remain banned permanently unless the ban is removed by an Administrator. The server will then be able to start and run normally. The only impact to the end user is that the banned document does not sync to the mobile device.

Settings

By default the repeated crash protection is enabled and set to detect and ban a document after the second crash. The number of crashes before banning a document can be configured by adding this parameter to the notes.ini file.

NTS_BAN_DOC_LIMIT=2

A setting of zero will disable crash protection. A restart of the Lotus Traveler server is required for the changes to take effect.

Administration

To administer the banned documents these additional tell commands have been added to the Lotus Traveler server.

Command	Description
Tell Traveler BannedDoc show DocID UserID	Shows the specified banned document. DocID is the UNID or a noteID of a document.
Tell Traveler BannedDoc show * UserID	Lists all of the banned documents for the specified user.
Tell Traveler BannedDoc show *	Lists all of the banned documents on the system.
Tell Traveler BannedDoc Remove DocID UserID	Removes the ban for a particular document. DocID is the UNID or a noteID of a document.
Tell Traveler BannedDoc Remove * UserID	Removes the ban for all banned documents for the specified user.
Tell Traveler BannedDoc Remove *	Removes the ban for all banned documents on the server.
Tell Traveler BannedDoc Add DocID UserID	Bans a particular document from syncing. DocID is the UNID or a noteID of a document.
Tell Traveler BannedDoc dump	Attempts to dump all of the banned documents to DumpDoc.nsf. This should only be used if providing Lotus Traveler support the documents in question for troubleshooting purposes.

References

Product Documentation

Lotus Traveler Maintenance Information

Lotus Traveler APAR Listing