Lotus Notes email application is a proprietary of IBM. That is used for day by day Email -communication as well as Personal information management software. It manages all user mailbox data (e-mails data, calendar events, tasks, meeting and appointments etc.) in Lotus Notes database in .nsf file format. The Lotus Notes database files are prone to corruption due to several physical or logical errors.
The Most common factors that lead to Lotus Notes database corruption are:
• Dirty System shutdown
• Issues with the Operating System
• Any installed application that is incompatible with Lotus Notes
• Hardware failure
• Corruption of NSF file header
• Software malfunctioning
• Virus attack etc.
One more reason of the corruption in Lotus Notes data is damaged RRV bucket.
RRV bucket: The term RRV is abbreviated as Record Relocation Vector. This Notes table acts as a vector which points to the Lotus Notes Database and tells Notes where to find a specific NoteID.
Lotus Notes Error: RRV Bucket is Corrupt
When user tries to open emails in Lotus Notes then, RRV bucket locates the specified notes or object identifiers in the Lotus Notes database. But if the RRV bucket gets corrupt then, Notes cannot locate the specified object identifier.
In such situation the database fails to open any objects for creating new replica and an error message pops up on the screen: “RRV bucket is corrupt” .
There can be various probable situations when you may receive this error. Some to the common error scenarios are discussed below.
-> Sometimes, if the RRV bucket is severely damaged then, Notes client fails to open after showing the error message.
- Cause: This generally occurs due to corrupt bookmarks or icons.
Resolution: If you are facing the same problem then,
- Rename the desktop5.dsk (R5) file
- Rebuild it.
Note: Before performing the above steps don’t forget to backup the files.
If after renaming & rebuilding the desktop5.dsk (R5) file, you are still unable to start the Notes Client then, rename the bookmark.nsf file. If after logging in the client you find a corrupt icon on the workspace then, remove it, after that compact the workspace.
If after renaming & rebuilding the desktop5.dsk (R5) file, you are still unable to start the Notes Client then, rename the bookmark.nsf file. If after logging in the client you find a corrupt icon on the workspace then, remove it, after that compact the workspace.
- Cause: Issues in template based database
Resolution: Change the design of Lotus notes database on another E-mail server.
- Cause: database corruption
Resolution:
Follow the given steps to resolve the error:
1) Restore the data from recent database backup
2) R fixup -f", then "compact -c -i" command to recover the corrupt database.
Follow the given steps to resolve the error:
1) Restore the data from recent database backup
2) R fixup -f", then "compact -c -i" command to recover the corrupt database.
Note: If the inbuilt Lotus repair doesn’t help you to repair the corrupt database then, you require some alternative Lotus Notes Recovery software to repair and recover the corrupt database items.
- Cause: Corruption of archived database
Resolution:
- Restore the mailfile from a backup copy of the database.
- After that create a new archive database with the help of backup copy.
You should not let your file size exceed 500MB however organizations may set this criteria according to their preferences, some organizations limit the maximum file size up to 200MB.
You can check the data size by following the given steps:
- Go to File> Database> Properties.
- Go to File>Applications> Properties (For Lotus 8).
- Click the "i" tab.
- After that determine your desired archive settings. According to which you can set the frequency for which Lotus Notes is too be archived and you can also decide whether all emails are to be archived or only the selected ones.
- Open the mail application
- Open mail settings by clicking Actions> Archive> Settings.
- Go to the Criteria tab and select the option "Default for last modified"(if it isn’t selected).
- Click "ok" and enable the Criteria.
- Open the mail application
- Open Actions> Archive> Settings.
- Open the Schedule tab and select “Schedule archiving”.
- Now select the desired time and day for automatic archive process to archive your files.
- Open the mail application.
- Open the specific folder that is to be archived (you can also select a particular mail if required)
- Click Actions> Archive> Archive Now.
- Click ‘Yes’ to start the archiving process.
This is simply another way to manually archive Lotus Notes.
- Open the mail application
- Open the desired mail or folder to be archived.
- Select the desired message/messages and drag them to the required archive folder in the Navigation pane.
“HTTP Web Server: Lotus Notes Exception - RRV bucket is corrupt. This mail file cannot be opened in both Notes and Web.”
In such situation ‘Design refresh or replace’ can help you resolve the error.
Sometimes, this error may also lead to troubles for the user while performing database administration tasks such as replication, refresh or replace design etc.
Resolution:
In such situation follow the given steps for resolving the error:
- Compact the database.
- Run the mail file convert task
Compacting a database, reduces the used space and thus makes the database less prone to corruption.
In Notes, if you compact a database, the Notes application first makes a temporary copy of the database, performs compaction and after that copies the changes back to the original database file. Sometimes, compaction process may fail if there isn’t enough space on the hard disk as the disk space is required to save the copy database while performing compaction.
Steps:
1. Open the database.
2. Go to File - Database - Properties.
3. Go to the Info tab.
4. Click % used.
5. Check the percentage specified there, if it is below 90% that means the unused space is 10%, thus you can compact he database.
6. Click Compact to compact the database.
Follow the given steps to convert mail files using the mail conversion utility:
1.Firstly shut down the router on the server console (i.e. Domino server on which the mail files are to be enabled.
While upgrading the mail files, the mails are stored in mailbox. Running this command will prevent the Domino from routing mail to the mail files while conversion is being done. To deliver the mail in mailbox you need to load the router again after the conversion has been done.
2.Run the load convert -e command in mail conversion utility :
load convert -e maildirectory\mailfilename
Note: Here, maildirectory is the path of the mail subdirectory containing the user's mail file. It is the path relative to the server's Domino data directory.
mailfilename is the user's mail file.
If you want to enable IMAP for all mail files in the \MAIL subdirectory then, the command will look like this.
load convert -e mail\*.nsf
3.Once you have enabled the mail files for IMAP on this server, and then Load the router with thehelp of load command.
load router
4.Configure IMAP client software.
Note: The mail conversion utility can be run on single mail file or on all mail files in a directory
If the RRV bucket isn’t severely corrupted then, you can recover the data with the help of Domino server database. You can resolve the minor corruption issues with the help of commands: Fixup, compact, updall and other replaced commands. But sometimes these tools fail to recover your Lotus notes data and the error keeps popping up .You are on safe side if you have recent backup of your Lotus Notes database, you can restore the data from the backup. But if don’t have recent backup of your data then, you need some powerful and efficient Lotus Notes repair utility to repair and recover the corrupt Lotus Notes Database.