Problems verified after the upgrade Jan 12, 2006 [JES 2005Q4]

In uwc, if you see java errors when you try to accept an invitation, see whether the following might be your problem:

There appears to be an incompatibility between how calendar and uwc handle a request to be notified before all events. If you set this option in calendar, uwc will crash when you try to accept an event. For the moment, either clear the option to be notified, or set the option in the same application you are going to use. That is, if you want to try uwc, and you have notification set from calendar, go into uwc's option screen and set the option from uwc. This has been reported to Sun.

There is an oddity with repeated events in uwc, but I'm not sure it's a bug. When you request an event, you always specify a date and time for the first event, typically by clicking the add icon (a plus sign) on some day. Suppose it's a Friday in the middle of the month, I click on add event for today, and I ask for a recurring series for the first Monday of each month. I get two things: an event for next Monday, and events for the first Monday in the next and all later months. If you don't want the event next Monday, go to the first Monday of next month, and click the add icon there. The system seems to take the view that by specifying a start date that isn't a first Monday, you want something special done for the first event. I haven't tested anything other than the first N of the month, because that's what a user reported to me, so I don't know how consistently this is carried out. But it isn't obvious that this is a bug. I'd say that if you want just first Mondays, the date you specify for the start of the series should be a first Monday.

I've had problems with rules not working. I.e. I have a rule that sends all mail with a spam score of 5 or higher to a separate folder. Sometimes that mail appears in my inbox rather than being put in the folder. I am 90% sure that I have fixed it by making sure that my spam folder is set for direct delivery. This is something you do in web mail by choosing the folder and going into the "share" dialog. [Sun says they have finally tracked this down, and a fix will appear shortly.]

As of Jul 31, 2006 we're seeing a bug where some users get a timeout in uwc after just a few minutes of use. I'm investigating.

We are seeing incompatibilities in handling access to calendars between the old calendar code and uwc/Outlook Connector. In particular:

• The old code appears to be case-insensitive. We've seen situations where someone with netid xxxx appears in the list of people with access to a calendar as Xxxx. This works in the old calendar but not the new systems. You need to remove them and add them as xxxx, i.e. all lowercase.
• Some calendar access control entries are messed up internally. The problem may well have happened years ago. The old code is able to make sense of the entry even though it's technically incorrect. If you remove the person from having access, and then put them back with exactly the same access, it will work. Unfortunately there's no way to see that you have this problem without looking at the internal representation of the access control entry. Support staff can do this via "cal props" in manage properties. Normal users can't.

In addition, there are several problems preventing some people from using uwc rather than the old calendar system. I have reported them, and asked product management to get involved. The one remaining is

• uwc always starts in email [it appears that I can fix this for people who don't receive email on rulink; but probably not for people who do get mail here but still want to start in calendar]

Things I think are fixed:

• Calendar to which you have free/busy but not read access is not visible in uwc. This is mostly fixed by T31. There are a couple of caveats: (1) it shows start time but not end time for the period -- this has been reported to Sun as a problem, (2) if the period covers multiple days, all the entries still show the start time, which has the date of the first day in the sequence. This looks very odd, but is probably not a separate problem for (1).
• Addressbook fails after 12 tries [seems to be fixed in T31]
• Text of messages is duplicated because invalid MIME structure is generated [fixed in T118207-48, which has now been installed]
• Calendar can't go beyond 2006 in uwc [fixed in T118540-27, which has now been installed]
• For some calendars, trying the monthly view in the uwc fails, and leaves a thread looping in the web server. This was fixed in T27.
• I forgot to copy addressbooks in the initial conversion. That should be fixed as of 5pm, Saturday, 14 Jan 2006.
• The LCSR Spam filter wasn't working after the conversion. That should have been fixed by noon, 14 Jan 2006. However a few things are still slipping through. [looks like this is fixed with patch 118207-42]
• In the uwc, it times out if you're idle. It may be as fast as 10 min. I believe it is now set to 12 hours, as of 8:20pm, Sat, 14 Jan 2006.
• The additional Rutgers calendar notifications are implemented for uwc.
• Add Addresses doesn't work in uwc. This looks like a bug, not a configturation error [fixed in patch installed 10pm Sun, 15 Jan 2006]
• Attempts to access calendars in the monthly view failed for people who had all-day events. This was an incompatibility in calendar formats. I updated all calendars. Fixed by 23:30 or so Monday, 16 Jan 2006. This caused performance problems, because each attempt to access a calendar left a thread in the web server in an infinite loop.

Bugs I have fixed locally, which must be checked in new releases of uwc. They may be fixed in T31, but I haven't removed the workarounds to check.

• Calendars in pulldown list are in random order, should be alpha [this has been accepted as a request for enhancement, which unfortunately gets a lower priority than bug fixes; However I have fixed it myself by adding javascript code to sort the list.]
• Calendar view fails if language not defined. Problem occurs when viewing calendar.
• Fix to commonattributes-list.xsl. Problem occurs when composing message and hitting 'to', for michaelk

Other bugs reported to Sun

• Can't purge deleted calendar entries. Bug 6233379. This won't be visible to users. The problem is with an internal database.

Known problems and issues with the software installed November 25, 2004

Problems that are probably still there in the 2006 software

Inviting lots of people in IE: If you use the old calendar interface in Internet Explorer, you'll find that you can't invite more than 6 - 8 people to an event. Workarounds: (1) use a browser other than IE, (2) use the new interface, https://rulink.rutgers.edu/uwc , (3) use the non-SSL interface, http://rulink.rutgers.edu/ncalendar (this uses SSL for your password, but the rest of the session is in the clear). We recommend changing to the new interface.

Buttons disappear: Some people have reported that you have to scroll to get to the OK button in some dialogs. In the Outlook Connector, in the subscribe dialog, sometimes the buttons are not visible. This seems to happen if you have set your screen resolution great then 96 dpi. Setting the resolution to 96 dpi (which is the default) seems to fix it.

Synchronization: If you synchronize to a PDA or Outlook, sometimes you will need to reset your calendar name. To do this,

• Start Sun ONE Synchronization (the appropriate version: Palm, Outlook, or whatever)
• Select Sun ONE and click "Settings"
• Choose the "Data Sources" tab
• Select "Sun One Calendar" and click Change
• In "Calendar Options" there is a pulldown box to choose your calendar name. Their instructions say to choose your actual calendar name. However when I did it there was nothing in the pulldown menu. Simply clicking "OK" was enough to force it to recompute the calendar name. When you click "OK" it will warn you that this will force a resynchronization. Say "Yes".
• Select "Sun One Tasks" and click Change
• Do the same as with Sun One Calendar
• Now click "OK" from "Settings"
• You're now back in the main Sun One Synchronization dialog, where you can click "Synchronize". You'll need to choose whether to take data from the server or your device. I don't recommend merging them, or you are likely to get duplicate events.

Some people report that they can't get through the instructions above. Where you try to choose a calendar name, there are no options available, and it won't let you get away without choosing one. In that case you'll need to uninstall the sync tool and reinstall it.

• To uninstall, look in the program menu for Sun Synchronization. You'll find an uninstall there. Other people have used the normal Windows program uninstall.
• To reinstall, simply run SunONESync.1.1p2.exe. If you don't have that left around from your original installation, you can get it at https://rulink.rutgers.edu/sync/login.php3

Problems that we doubt you will still see in 2006

IE Users: If web mail gives you Javascript errors, you need to clear the browser cache. IE is holding onto Javascript from the old system. It won't work with the new one. Choose "Tools/Internet Options/Delete Files".

Javascript errors in mail: A few users find that they can't login to mail, or that some functions in it fail. They get an error message with a Javascript error. First, if you are using IE, make sure you clear the cache as described in the previous paragraph. If that doesn't do it, please contact hedrick@rutgers.edu. I will clear your mail options. These are things like the color scheme and whether web mail should start with Sunday or Monday. Resetting them to the default seems to fix this problem. Doing this does not affect the way mail is delivered or sent -- just the appearance of the web mail application.

Changes to urls: Some people have saved URLs into the system, e.g. https://rulink.rutgers.edu:1025/?calid=NNNNNN as a way for people to see your calendar without having to login. You'll need to update URLs like that, because the calendar names now have domains. I.e. "calid=confroom" has turned into "calid=confroom@rutgers.edu"

Mac users: The URL used to synchronize to Mac's ical has changed: You no longer need :1027. See the Mac ical instructions for details.

Large disk quotas: There appears to be a problem with disk quotas larger than 2 GB. Please contact hedrick@rutgers.edu if you need a larger quota -- there is an alternative available.

Old issues for administrators and experts, probably not relevant in 2006

Domain administrators: I think the administrative tools mostly work. However they are the least tested part. Please check carefully to make sure you're getting the result you expect.

If any of you are using address books, you need to know that the search bases have changed. If you used to search in something ending o=dept.rutgers.edu,o=rutgers.edu, it is now o=dept.rutgers.edu,o=rulink-top. The new administrative tools choked on the old structure.

There are some differences in structure from the old system. Most visibly, I'm not using as many ports. If you use the new user interface, all user connections will be with https://rulink.rutgers.edu, with no port number. (However the calendar sync and Outlook interface will still talk to port 1025, and the unified web client will redirect you to port 1026 for mail. I believe this will change over time, as Sun moves all of their code into the Java framework.)

I am now using the Sun web server rather than Apache. We'll see whether I can survive it: there are definitely some limitations compared with Apache, but it's easier to use for Sun's applications some as Communications Express.