Wednesday, June 14, 2006

Domino Server Upgrades

I ran into an issue today during an incremental upgrade where I needed to rename the nxmlcommon.dll file to get the upgrade to work. After the upgrade, I needed to rename it back to .dll so Domino would start. When it started, I got an error message:

nSERVER.EXE - Entry Point Not Found

The procedure entry point ?g_statusmgs@DxlStr@@2QBGB could not be located in the dynamic link library nxmlcommon.dll

I later realized that by renaming the file I must’ve prevented that file from being upgraded. I checked another Domino server at the same release and its file was newer. I copied the newer file over and restarted to make sure the message didn’t appear again, and then all was good.

Stuff like this happens a lot during upgrades.

A little background on my Domino Server Upgrade experiences:

Whenever I upgrade a Domino server, I prepare myself for the worst. Even a simple point release that should take 5 minutes to run can go wrong. Not so wrong that I’ve had to rebuild a server, but wrong enough to require some strange workarounds and take 10 times longer than expected.

Everytime I run an incremental installer on the Domino server, I run into another set of issues with the files currently on the server. The incremental installer loads and then fails to confirm the current release. I then need to find the UPGRADE.LOG file, read it to find what files failed a checksum test, rename or move those files, then continue with the upgrade. Usually these files live in the Domino\Data\Domino\HTML\downloads\filesets folder.

Other times I run into issues with a few key dlls. I swear the server has completely shutdown, but somehow the dlls are still in use. They include js32.dll, nxmlcommon.dll, and a few others. I usually am able to rename them to .OLD and continue the install.

Finally I’m able to get through an incremental install. I then start the next incremental install and start the process all over again.

I wonder does this problem happen to everyone?

2 comments:

Unknown said...

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
It does happens. Every time.
I would point out the following dlls that could be classified as the "trouble makers".
My tip is:
->Rename the following files according to the example:
js32.dll; ndgts.dll; nlsccstr.dll; nxmlcommon.dll; nnotes.dll; nxmlpar.dll.
This must be done so that they do not conflict with new files extracted by the installation program.
->While renaming the files change the extension ".dll" to the Domino version they belong to:
Example: When upgrading from Domino 5.0.13 to 6.5.5, all dll files mentioned above must have the extensions renamed to ".5013". In this case, "nnotes.dll" would become "nnotes.5013".
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Please note that all the files that you renamed must exist a new dll file for it once the upgrade is through, if not, you'll need to rename it back so that all the "dlls" exist.

The solutions given by Lotus on these issues informs us to do the same.
--------------------------------
By the way, I ran you the same error message you did on upgrading from 6.5.5 to 6.5.6FP1. I replaced the "bad file" with a good one but the error message still shows up.
For servers with http enabled there are 2 error messages:

"nHTTP.EXE -Entry Point Not Found
The procedure entry point ?g_statusmgs@DxlStr@@2QBGB could not be located in the dynamic link library nxmlcommon.dll"



"nSERVER.EXE - Entry Point Not Found
The procedure entry point ?g_statusmgs@DxlStr@@2QBGB could not be located in the dynamic link library nxmlcommon.dll"

???ANY IDEA HOW TO GET THIS FIXED???

PS: I've tried replacing all the dlls and all the executables but no go! Still shows up the error messages.
Please mail to : "goku87br@yahoo.com.br"

Ken Pespisa said...

I unfortunately never got the chance to move to Lotus Notes 6.5 and beyond. My company decided to move away from Lotus Notes in favor of Exchange, and put the brakes on upgrades to our Notes servers.

Still, given that the error is the same one we've seen before, I imagine it has something to do with the wrong dll being there.

The error message "the entry point could not be located" says to me that the dll is different than the code expected.

If possible, I'd consider removing the entire Domino directory and starting with a clean installation, followed by the upgrades.