Lotus Notes, or IBM Notes, is a critical enterprise software that helps users communicate and collaborate in a shared environment. But despite being a crucial software, there is a spike in user reports indicating an erratic behavior of this software, causing random errors and frequent application crashes.
Users have reported incidents of Lotus Notes crashing. For some users, Lotus Notes is crashing at fixed intervals of time. For others, it is crashing at a specific time every day or after performing a particular action. Many of the crash reports also suggest that users are mostly on Lotus Notes 7, 8, and 9.
Let’s dig deeper to understand the reasons behind frequent Lotus Notes crashes. Simultaneously, we will also learn some ways to fix the issues.
Reasons Why Lotus Notes Keep Crashing?
There are several reasons why Lotus Notes keeps crashing. Some of these are –
- Software conflicts
- Improper shutting down of the system
- File corruption
- Faulty application files
- Lotus Notes adapter errors
Common Errors Behind Lotus Notes Crashing Issue
Every time Lotus Notes crashes, it creates a dump file called Fault Reports. Fault reports are .NSD files that can be analyzed for clues related to the application crash. Based on our findings, we have highlighted some common error messages that users encounter during a crash. We have also listed possible fixes with every error.
Error 1 – Lotus Notes Showing You are not Authorized to Perform that Operation error message
Some users reported encountering the ‘You are not authorized to perform that operation’ error message while trying to launch Lotus Notes software. This error message indicates that the user is not permitted to access the ‘bookmark.nsf’ database through the Access Control List (ACL).
In order to fix this error, users can create an all-new bookmark file using their Lotus Notes IDs. Read this guide to create an all-new bookmark file.
Error 2 – Lotus Notes Crashes Randomly
If you are getting the ‘An error has occurred in Lotus Notes application’ error message while launching Lotus Notes, it could be due to software conflicts or configurational issues. To fix this, you can install the latest available update.
You may also try to reinstall the software to fix the issue.
Many Lotus Notes 8.5.x and specifically 8.5.3 users were facing frequent application crashes. To prevent frequent crashing of the Lotus Notes application, users can install the Fix Pack 4 for Lotus Notes 8.5.3 from here.
Error 3 – Lotus Notes Crashing Daily at the Same Time
Some Lotus Notes users who were using Notes 7 and upgraded to Notes 8.5.3 faced a strange situation where the application crashes daily at the same time or after a specific action.
This is happening with users who closed the Lotus Notes window by pressing the X button and then logging off or shutting down the PC. Upon digging further, we found out that Lotus Notes 8.5.x takes longer to close its background tasks than Lotus Notes 7.x. Immediately shutting down the PC after closing the application prevented Lotus Notes 8.5.x from closing properly, which caused the OS to dump it from the memory during the shutdown process.
As a fix, Lotus Notes 8.5.x users should not log off or shut down their PC immediately after closing Lotus Notes. They should wait for a few minutes and then shut down their systems. Users can also lock or hibernate their PCs instead.
Error 4 – Lotus Notes Crashes with Windows 7 Dialog Box
For some Windows 7 users, Lotus Notes was crashing with a Windows 7 dialog box. This crash generated random error messages like – files no longer exist courtesy of a JVM fault.
This error can be tricky for some users to fix. However, there is a workaround for that. Users will have to create a new Desktop.ndk and names.nsf files in the Notes application. Doing this will resolve the crash and will prevent any data loss.
Error 5 – Lotus Notes Failed to Initialize
While trying to launch a Notes session, many users have encountered the following error message – ‘Error in initializing the Notes session – No error message available.’ This message occurs when the directory path of the nnotes.dll file is missing from the path system variable.
To fix this, users can add the directory path of nnotes.dll file to the path variable of the system variables.
Error 6 – Lotus Notes Crashes while using HCL/IBM Lotus Notes Sametime
HCL Sametime (Formerly IBM Lotus Sametime) is a middleware for Lotus Notes that allows users to exchange chat messages, participate in Sametime meetings, and more. Many users of Lotus Notes 8.5.3 fix pack 3 experienced unexpected crashes while using the Sametime middleware alongside Lotus Notes. This could be happening due to conflicts between the two applications or incorrect configuration settings. To fix this issue, users can install Fix Pack Four.
Conclusion
If your Lotus Notes application keeps crashing, it could be happening due to unauthorized access, conflicting applications, incorrect configuration settings, and much more. You can use the DIY methods mentioned above to fix the issues. But if the solutions provide no help, you can rely on an NSF to PST converter to convert and migrate data from an NSF file to Outlook or Office 365.