Troubleshooting Lotus Sametime 8.5 using WAS configuration files and logs

Describes several WebSphere Application Server configuration files and logs that can be helpful for determining the current configuration of Lotus Sametime 8.5 and troubleshooting issues that occur in the Sametime environment.

The topics covered in the document are:

  • WebSphere Application Server configuration files in the context of Sametime
  • How to manually synchronize Sametime configuration changes
  • How to automate synchronization of nodes
  • WebSphere Application Server log files in the context of Sametime
  • How to enable Trace for WebSphere Application Server based Sametime servers
  • How to bind ports

This document can be downloaded from here.

Sametime 8.5: Taking over control needs peer to peer connection

In Sametime 8.5 you can share your screen with other users in a meeting room even if you do not have a direct network connection. It is sufficient that every participant can reach the meeting server.

However if someone wants to take over control of another user’s screen he must be able to establish a direct peer-to-peer connection to the user who shares the screen.. Otherwise the user does not get a “Take control” button.

This might e.g. be the case if there is a firewall between both workstations and the port 22222 is not open between both partners.

You can check if there is a peer to peer connection between the the user who wants to take over control and the sharing user with the following command on a Windows command line:

netstat -an | find “22222”

If there is no connection on that port found, then there is no peer to peer connection established and that is the reason why taking over control is not possible.

Connect Sametime 8.5 Media Manager to Community Cluster

If you install a Sametime 8.5 Media Manager you need to specify exactly one deployment name of a Community Server to which the Media Manager should connect to. There is currently no possibility in the GUI to connect to a Community Cluster. You need to do that manually afterwards by editing the following config file:

<Websphere Root\AppServer\profiles\<ProfileName>\config\<Cell Name>/nodes/<Node Name>/servers/STMediaServer/stavconfig.xml

Look for the line

name=”STCommunityServerHost” value=”<name of you community server”>

and change the name to the name of your Community server load balancer.

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Change default log language for Websphere application server

If you are running a Websphere application server (e.g. Lotus Sametime 8.5 or Lotus Connections servers) on a Windows server with regional settings set to a non-English language you end up with log files written in that language. This is something you might not want to have as most of the error messages you find in the Lotus Knowledgebase or in the Internet are in English.

To change the log language to English you need to do the following steps:

  • Open the Websphere Integrated Solution Console for the server (or the deployment manager)
  • Go to “Servers->Server Types -> Websphere application servers
  • Click on the server you want to change
  • Under “Server Infrastructure” expand “Java and Process Management”  and choose “Process definition”
  • Under “Additional properties” click “Java Virtual Machine”
  • Add the following string at the end of “Generic JVM arguments”:  “-Duser.language=en -Duser.region=GB”
  • Choose “OK” and “Save”.
  • If needed synchronize your nodes.

If the server starts the next time the log file language will be set to “English” and the date / time format to “English (GB)”. You will find more  info about the language and region parameters here.

Sametime 8.5: Make sure you can ping your LDAP server

If you create a guided activity for installing a Sametime 8.5 meeting server you should make sure that you not only can reach you LDAP server via port 389 (resp. 636) but you also can PING it from the system console.

If PING is not allowed e.g. because of a firewall between the system console and the LDAP server you will always get the error message that your LDAP server is not reachable.

If for security reasons normally PING is not allowed you will need to temporarely enable it until your installation has been finished. Afterwards you can disable it again.

Sametime 8.0.x: Solution for “Meetings scheduled in AM are changed to PM

A customer complained that if some users schedule a meeting in Sametime 8.0.x which should occur before noon the time of the meeting is automatically changed from AM to PM.

This can happen if you have set your Internet browser to a country/language which uses AM and PM for the time (e.g. “English (US)”) and  the regional settings of your server is set to a a region which does not use AM/PM but 24h time display (e.g. German).

In this case the Windows registry entries for AM and PM on the server are blank which is the reason for that problem.

To solve the issue you need to add the values for AM and PM in the Windows registry on the server.

If the Domino Server is started as a windows service (which is normally the case), then these values need to be changed in the HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Control Panel\International of the registry as programs running as a service are using the .DEFAULT settings.

The values to be updated are :

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Control Panel\International]
“s1159″=”AM”
“s2359″=”PM”

After you have updated the registry and restarted your Sametime server the meetings should be scheduled correctly regardless of the language settings of the browser.