Environment
Novell GroupWise 7
Novell NetWare 6.5
Microsoft Windows 2000/2003 workstations
Situation
Several different situations.
1) Start the GroupWise client, look at one email, switch to the 'Sent Items', it goes there and then the client just exits. There's no error, it just exits. Starts client and repeats process.
2) Starts client goes into trash to empty many messages, at least 500, when trying to do so client crashes. Very global. 5000+ workstations. Did see some 8209 errors, but not many.
3) Client would not even start.
In all situations no errors were generated. No Send error report to Microsoft was generated. No errors appear in verbose POA logs. No events were recorded in Windows event viewer. No grpwise.rpt was generated either. It did not matter the user or the workstation. Performed structural rebuilds, gwchecks, checked Software Distribution Directory and even the ofviews directory.
1) Start the GroupWise client, look at one email, switch to the 'Sent Items', it goes there and then the client just exits. There's no error, it just exits. Starts client and repeats process.
2) Starts client goes into trash to empty many messages, at least 500, when trying to do so client crashes. Very global. 5000+ workstations. Did see some 8209 errors, but not many.
3) Client would not even start.
In all situations no errors were generated. No Send error report to Microsoft was generated. No errors appear in verbose POA logs. No events were recorded in Windows event viewer. No grpwise.rpt was generated either. It did not matter the user or the workstation. Performed structural rebuilds, gwchecks, checked Software Distribution Directory and even the ofviews directory.
Resolution
Had users run Filemon by Microsoft and searched criteria based off
of grpwise.exe with a infinite history.
Resolutions based by situation number.
1) Migrating users from 6.5 to 7.2HP2r1. Client that were straight installs of 7.2HP2r1 had problems, but not migrated ones. Filemon found that when view was switching from Inbox to Sent Items folder that GroupWise was searching for a mapisp32.exe in c:\windows\system32. This file was missing and when this file was copied over from a working machine's c:\windows\system32 into the troubled machine's c:\windows\system32 the problem was resolved.
2) Filemon found more then 20 missing files. These clients had all been upgraded 7.02 to 7.02HP2r1. Machines that had been updated had the problem where machines that had a fresh install did not. When GroupWise was deleted from the system and 7.02HPr1 placed on the system again, problem continued until a total wipe of GroupWise from the system was performed. This included using Add/Remove Programs and manually going into the C drive and removing any remaining GroupWise folders that still existed on the Root or/and in the Novell folder. Once that was performed along with a clean install of 7.02HP2r1 it worked fine.
3) Technical Support Engineer upgraded client from 7.02 to 7.02HP2r1 on Windows 2000 workstation. When upgrade was performed MSI installer had problems creating a shortcut icon and generated an error. Could not perform work around be even going into GroupWise directory and running it from there. Re-ran the patch with the fix option. MSI created short icon this time, but neither the shortcut nor the system exe could get GroupWise to even startup. Performed total and complete wipe of GroupWise using Add/Remove Programs and manually going into the C drive and removing any remaining GroupWise folders that still existed on the Root or/and in the Novell folder. Once that was performed along with a clean install of 7.02HP2r1 it worked fine.
In all three cases files from the install were missing or corrupted. When those missing files were replaced or had a complete wipe and reinstall they worked fine.
Resolutions based by situation number.
1) Migrating users from 6.5 to 7.2HP2r1. Client that were straight installs of 7.2HP2r1 had problems, but not migrated ones. Filemon found that when view was switching from Inbox to Sent Items folder that GroupWise was searching for a mapisp32.exe in c:\windows\system32. This file was missing and when this file was copied over from a working machine's c:\windows\system32 into the troubled machine's c:\windows\system32 the problem was resolved.
2) Filemon found more then 20 missing files. These clients had all been upgraded 7.02 to 7.02HP2r1. Machines that had been updated had the problem where machines that had a fresh install did not. When GroupWise was deleted from the system and 7.02HPr1 placed on the system again, problem continued until a total wipe of GroupWise from the system was performed. This included using Add/Remove Programs and manually going into the C drive and removing any remaining GroupWise folders that still existed on the Root or/and in the Novell folder. Once that was performed along with a clean install of 7.02HP2r1 it worked fine.
3) Technical Support Engineer upgraded client from 7.02 to 7.02HP2r1 on Windows 2000 workstation. When upgrade was performed MSI installer had problems creating a shortcut icon and generated an error. Could not perform work around be even going into GroupWise directory and running it from there. Re-ran the patch with the fix option. MSI created short icon this time, but neither the shortcut nor the system exe could get GroupWise to even startup. Performed total and complete wipe of GroupWise using Add/Remove Programs and manually going into the C drive and removing any remaining GroupWise folders that still existed on the Root or/and in the Novell folder. Once that was performed along with a clean install of 7.02HP2r1 it worked fine.
In all three cases files from the install were missing or corrupted. When those missing files were replaced or had a complete wipe and reinstall they worked fine.
Additional Information
MSI installer did not do a proper job of updating files and paths
to files.