Server Time faster or slower than OS?

In the last few days our old mail server which is running Domino 8 started doing odd things with the dates and times. Mail which arrived at say 10:15am would show as arriving the previous day at 05:23am or some other random time. The amount of time the server was out from the OS date time was not consistent and would vary.

Having checked all the usual suspects such as regional settings, default user etc... I still could not find an obvious answer. Then by luck and a bit of cunning query writing I found a technote which described exactly what we were experiencing. Apparently the Domino server was suffering from "Time Creep", where there is some inconsistency on the OS ticks v the OS time and apparently was caused by a bug in the Domino Time package. This has been resolved in 8.02 and 8.5.

To resolve the issue there is a handy Notes.ini param you can set which tells Domino to sync the time with the OS:

SERVER_TIMESYNC_INTERVAL = 1 - every 5min (default)
SERVER_TIMESYNC_INTERVAL = 2 - every 1min
SERVER_TIMESYNC_INTERVAL = 3 - every 60min
SERVER_DISABLE_TIMESYNC=1 -disable polling

Having added this to the server it now appears to be correct but I will need to monitor it for a few days to be sure.

Here is a link to the full technote:
http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?rs=899&uid=swg21327441

Xpages not loading? JVM errors? - Solution

If you read my last post you will recall that after upgrading my Dominio 7.02 server to 8.5.1 I could not get xpages to load from the server. I would get HTTP 500 errors in the browser and a http jvm: severe: clfad####e: error on the console.

I did the usual search on the net, tried the suggestions such as re-installing the server after removing the jvm directory, running a clean on the project from designer etc... But still no joy. Asked around a few fellow notes peeps and still no luck.

I tried to view two different xpage databases, the first was the standard 8.5 discussion and the second was a simple bespoke database with a single xpage containing a label and a field. Neither would load, however both would preview on the client.

After a few hours of investigation this morning and much hair pulling, desk head banging and caffeine consumption I have found the cause.

The error I was getting seems to be a fairly generic one:

HTTP JVM: SEVERE: CLFAD####E: Exception occurred servicing request for: /xpages/xpagestu.nsf/xp1.xsp - HTTP Code: 500
HTTP Web Server: Command Not Handled Exception [/xpages/xpagestu.nsf/xp1.xsp]

Unfortunately turning on the "Display Default Error Page" in the xpages tab of the database properties did not work and no additional information was displayed making tracking the problem down a bit of an issue.

So I turned on Http debugging using "tell http debug session on" from the console. This generates log files in the IBM_TECHNICAL_SUPPORT directory under the server data directory. After trying a few requests a had a look at the logs and the only error I could see related to a completely different database. The log file was showing an error with a cookie used in another web application on that server.

The error showing in the logs was :

java.lang.illegalArgumentException: Cookie name "some name" is a reserved tokenSo initially I ignored that and continued searching... After another half hour or so I went back to the log file and still the only error recorded was related to a cookie from another application. So I decided to clear all my cookies out and try again. Hey presto, it loaded!

The end result is that a malformed cookie name, in this case one that has a space in the name, stops xpages loading to the browser!

Now I need to do some more testing but what this means to me is that the other web application on our server, if used, will stop xpages working on a users browser. Now I don't know if there is a way around this without a a lot of changes to the other application. I will enquire from people at IBM etc... if there is a solution but at least I know the cause now.

Xpages not loading on Server, JVM errors

Finally last night I decided that it was time to upgrade our existing 7.02 server to 8.5.1 as I want to make use of xpages in our web applications. So I backed up the 7.02 directories and did an install of 8.5.1 over the existing directories.

This seemed to work ok, the server booted up OK after, was showing as 8.5.1 on console and all the expected tasks such as xsp etc... loaded on server start. The only problem is that the server will not serve up an xpages to the browser, all I get is an "HTTP error 500" in the browser and a "http jvm: severe: clfad####e: error in the notes log".

I've tried the 8.5 discussion database, a brand new database with a single xpage and just a label and field and neither will load. All preview OK from the client.

I have tried to re-install after deleting the jvm directory so it was recreated, still no joy. I have signed the databases with the server ID and that did not work. Regular http pages are server, i.e. forms, views, pages etc...

So I have an 8.5 server that won't load the very things I need to be using!

Any ideas, is there something else I need to have configured? Do you need to have an internet site document for xpages to work? I noticed in the server document there is nowhere to map javascript directories but there is in the web documents.