Duplicate mail (and strange Seq Num)

HCL Domino Domino Forum
1

THE PROBLEM:

We have an agent that generates email notifications, and some users are getting duplicate notifications.

DUPLICATE NAMES IN GROUPS:

The recipients are groups from a public address book, and some names do appear in 2 or more groups. My understanding is that if the expanded “To” list is greater than 15 KB, then Notes will split the email into separate parts before removing duplicate names. But when the groups are expanded, are names of the form “First Last/abc/def” (18 bytes)? Or are they of the form “CN=First Last/OU=abc/O=def@defghijklm” (37 bytes)? If it’s the first form, then we’re below 15 KB. But if it’s the second, we’re over.

STRANGE PROPERTIES (SEQ NUM):

In examining duplicate notes, the only thing I noticed that might be significant is that one doc was Created at 9:18:17, and the other was Created at 9:18:29. Both were Added at 9:18:29 (which is the time the duplicate was created). What seems strange to me is that the document created earlier (9:18:17) has Seq Num = 4 for all fields, but the document created later (9:18:29) has Seq Num = 3.

In comparison, a user who received only a single notification shows Created 9:18:17, Added 9:18:29, and Seq Num = 2 for all fields.

THE QUESTION:

Any ideas on how to prevent these duplicates?

2

Subject: RE: Duplicate mail (and strange Seq Num)

Is the agent written in LS or Formula?

Is it possible there are two send mail calls, i.e. if there is a condition where both might be true?

Can you verify that the agent is sending only ONE email - i.e through the server logs, or agent.log?

Is it possible that a third-party program like a virus scanner is grabbing the first email and then sending it after the initial send?

3

Subject: RE: Duplicate mail (and strange Seq Num)

The agent is in LotusScript, and there is definitely only one send call.

I believe that the agent is sending only one email because most recipients are receiving only one – it’s just a small portion that are getting duplicates.

I don’t know what effect a third-party application might have. In theory, all users should have the same virus protection (McAfee VirusScan Enterprise 8.0.0).

4

Subject: RE: Duplicate mail (and strange Seq Num)

So, it’s an easy matter in the LS agent before the “send” to create a dummy document in the application and store the SendTo List, date/time.

Once you have the send date/time, you can see if the SERVER delivers ONE or TWO copies - should be in the messaging/mail view in the server log.nsf

Re: McAfee - I was referring to the server, saw a few posts about the SERVER anti-virus program creating duplicate emails - some were anti-virus, others were firewall related

Also: SPR# SKAI5WPB63 - patch in 6.5.3 that duplicated emails in BCC when names were similar.

Also: http://www-1.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?rs=0&q1=SendTo+15K&uid=swg21087560&loc=en_US&cs=utf-8&cc=us&lang=en

describes a workaround for exceeding the 61K limit in R6 in sendTo - (nesting groups)

Question - are these people getting mail using the Notes Client? Are they replicating?

5

Subject: RE: Duplicate mail (and strange Seq Num)

Actually, the script does create an audit doc. In this case, the document has a created time of 9:18:26 (and we’ve never gotten duplicate audit docs).

Yes, all users are getting mail using Notes Clients (ranging from 4.x to 6.x). No one should be replicating.

6

Subject: RE: Duplicate mail (and strange Seq Num)

So check the server logs and see if one GOES out and TWO are delivered. If so, then maybe virus, spam or firewall issue that’s grabbing the email