Monday, August 17, 2020

Updall options for Note/Domino v9.0.1 documentation

 I use the Notes/Domino maintenance tools pretty frequently to keep Domino servers and Notes workstations running at their best and to fix issues that may arise from time to time. When I run them from a command prompt I like to refer to each utility's Options pages in the product documentation to make sure that I use appropriate arguments on the command line, depending on what I need each tool to do for me. I've been doing this for years - no, decades - and you would thing that, by now, I would know all the arguments by heart. But I have never bothered to memorize them because, I don't know, I guess I'd rather put my organic storage device (a/k/a my brain) to other uses.

Anyway, I've noticed that, since HCL acquired Notes/Domino from IBM and took over the documentation of the produce, the Options pages for some of the utilities have disappeared from the documentation. The links to Updall Options in the online Domino 11 documentation, for example, no longer take one to the page that lists and explains the uses of all of the switches available to be used with the command. If I hunt long and hard enough, sometimes I may find what I'm looking for. But it feels like a real waste of time. So, for my own benefit and that of my other reader (and, okay, yours, too, if you want), below this paragraph I am quoting the content of the Domino 9.0.1 Updall Options page. I didn't try to fix any links in the quoted text and I don't know, offhand, if IBM or HCL may have made or be planning to make changes in later versions of the utility):

Updall options
The Updall task manages database full-text indexes.

Note: You can run the Updall task on a server, or you can use the dbmt tool that now includes the Updall task as well as other options instead of running Updall alone. See the related topics for more information.

You can use several methods of running the Updall task on a server.

  • From Task -> Start tool in the Domino® Administrator -- Use this method if you don't want to use command-line options.
  • Using the Load Updall console command -- Use this method if you are comfortable using command-line options or if you want to run Updall directly at the server console when there is no Domino Administrator running on the server machine.
  • Program document that runs Updall -- Use this method to schedule Updall to run at particular times.
  • Run Updall on a Win32 platform -- Use this method if you are unable to run Updall at the server console. This method requires that you use the "n" prefix -- for example, nupdall - R.

When you use these methods, you can include options that control what Updall updates. For example, you can update all views and not update any full-text search indexes.

The following tables describe the options you can use with Updall (Task -> Start ). The second column lists the equivalent command-line options that you use when you use a console command to run Updall and when you schedule Updall to run in a Program document.

Use this syntax when you use the Load updall console command:

Load updall databasepath options

For example:

Load updall SALES.NSF -F

You can specify multiple options -- for example:

Load updall -F -M

Table 1. Updall - Basic options

Option in Task - Start toolCommand-line optionDescription
  • Index all databases
  • Index only this database or folder
databasepath

This option is used when running Updall as a console command.

Choose the option to index all databases if you want updall to process all databases on the server.

Choose the option to specify a database or folder if you want updall to limit processing to the specified location. To update a database in the Domino data folder, enter the file name, for example, SALES.NSF. To update all databases contained in a subfolder of the data folder, specify the path relative to the data folder, for example, DOC\README.NSF.

Update this view onlydatabase -T viewtitle Updates a specific view in a database. Use, for example, with -R to solve corruption problems.

Note: -T cannot be used with .IND (indirect) files.


Table 2. Updall - Basic options - more

Option in Task - Start toolCommand-line optionDescription
Update: All built views-VUpdates built views and does not update full-text indexes.
Update: Full text indexes-FUpdates full-text indexes and does not update views.
Update: Full text indexes: Only those with frequency set to: Immediate or Hourly-HUpdates full-text indexes assigned "Immediate" or "Hourly" as an update frequency.
Update: Full text indexes: Only those with frequency set to: Immediate, Hourly, or Scheduled-M or -SUpdates full-text indexes assigned "Immediate," "Hourly," or "Scheduled" as an update frequency.
Update: Full text indexes: Those with frequency set to: Immediate, Hourly, Daily, or Scheduled-LUpdates full-text indexes assigned "Immediate," "Hourly," "Daily" or "Scheduled" as an update frequency.

Table 3. Updall - Rebuild options

Option in Task - Start toolCommand-line optionDescription
Rebuild: Full-text indexes only-XRebuilds full-text indexes and does not rebuild views. Use to rebuild full-text indexes that are corrupted.
Rebuild: All used views-RRebuilds all used views. Using this option is resource-intensive, so use it as a last resort to solve corruption problems with a specific database.
Rebuild: Full-text indexes and additionally: All unused viewsdatabase -C Rebuilds unused views and a full-text index in a database. Requires you to specify a database.

Table 4. Updall - Search Site options

Option in Task - Start toolCommand-line optionDescription
Update database configurations: Incremental-AIncrementally updates search-site database configurations for search site databases.
Update database configurations: Full-BDoes a full update of search-site database configurations for search site databases.

Option for running Updall as part of dbmt

Updall performs the following tasks by default. These are also tasks that the database maintenance tools performs:

  • purges deletion stubs
  • expires soft deleted entries
  • updates unread lists

Because the database maintenance tool is meant to replace (and improve upon) running updall nightly, you can use the following new option for updall to skip the tasks the preceding tasks, making updall faster when you run it for any one-time purpose.

-nodbmt

When you run updall as part of dbmt, Domino also ensures that the following views are built for databases with a template name of StdR7Mail, StdR8Mail, StdR85Mail and StdR9Mail:

  • $Inbox
  • $Drafts
  • $All
  • ($RepeatLookup)
  • ($ToDo)
  • ($Calendar)
  • ($Haiku_TOC)
  • ($Alarms)
  • ($iNotes)
  • ($Users)
  • ($iNotes_Contacts)
  • ($ThreadsEmbed)

After these views are built, they will not be discarded due to non-use.

Wednesday, July 29, 2020

Error message in Notes 11.0.1: "Insufficient memory - local heap is full"

I recently (like last week) upgraded Notes on my main workstation from 10.0.1 to 11.0.1FP1. The installation went uneventfully. But when I ran Notes and tried to open my mail database, Notes locked up and presented me with an error I hadn't seen before:
 Insufficient memory - local heap is full
I immediately Googled the error, but got nothing very useful in return. So then I decided to run the standard array of Notes maintenance tasks: Fixup. Compact -c. Updall. Not much help there either. But I noticed that Notes wasn't failing until I clicked the Mail or Calendar links in either the Task Bar or the Open List. So I tried opening mail manually, via Ctrl+O. That did seem to have a positive effect. My mail opened! And I was able to work with it for awhile. But eventually the error message popped up again and I had to kill and restart Notes to get back to work again.

So, as a last resort, I decided to give HCL Support a try. And pretty quickly I had a positive result. I searched my error message in the KnowledgeBase and got a direct hit - KB0081067.. (I wonder why it didn't turn up in my Google search.)

The fix in the KBase article directed me to carry out what amounted to a fresh reconfiguraton of Notes. I carried it out. It worked in that, afterwards, Notes could open my mail without the lockup. But it was a problem for me because I lost all my Desktop folders and tiles and all my bookmarks.

And it seemed like more of a workaround than a solution to me. Yeah, it might get Notes to run and open my mail DB. But it didn't provide any clue as to why the error was occurring and it didn't reassure me at all that the error wouldn't occur again some day. And, for me, losing all my tiles and bookmarks was a painful solution. I sort of live and die by my Notes configuration.

So I opened a support ticket. A nice, knowledgeable support tech named Nic responded and agreed that, yes, my tiles and bookmarks would be wiped out. And, no, the fix in the KBase article was not a permanent fix.

I asked if increasing the size of the local heap would be a sensible thing to do. Nic said, yes it would, but the new, bigger heap would consume about 2 GB of RAM. My workstation has 16 GB of RAM, so I asked how to proceed. Nic provided me with a link to this additional KBase article that described the procedure. I followed it. Notes is running. Mail is opening. So far, so good.

I suggested to Nic that the first KBase article needs to be amended to: 1) add a caveat about losing one's Notes configuration if one follows the instructions; 2) add the fact that following the reconfiguration procedure isn't necessarily a permanent fix; 3) state that one should alternatively consider increasing the heap size if one has sufficient RAM; and 4) provide the link to the second article describing the procedure for increasing the heap size. Nic agreed that the article should be amended with those items.

By the way, my experience with HCL Tech Support has been generally positive so far. And, thanks, Nic, for your helpful support.