Sun ONE Instant Messaging Release Notes
Last updated January 11, 2004


Sun™ ONE Instant Messaging 6.0
Release Notes

This document contains important information about SunTMONE Instant Messaging, available at the time of the 6.0 release. New features and enhancements, known problems, and other late-breaking issues are addressed here. Read this document before you begin using Sun ONE Instant Messaging 6.0.

This document contains the following sections:

 

About Sun ONE Instant Messaging


Sun ONE Instant Messaging delivers secure presence and extended real-time messaging, enabling communities of users to communicate and collaborate instantly and securely. It combines instant messaging capabilities with conferences, alerts, news, polling and file transfer to create a rich collaborative environment. It is available as a standalone product or as a fully integrated product with the Sun ONE Portal Server, leveraging its single sign-on, community management and secure remote access capabilities. Sun ONE Instant Messaging can also be used with the Sun ONE Identity Server, exploiting its service and policy management features.

What's New in Sun ONE Instant Messaging 6.0


The following lists the enhancements and new capabilities since release 3.0.1:

 

Documentation


All product documentation for Sun Microsystems can be found at the following location:

http://docs.sun.com/

Sun ONE Instant Messaging Documentation

In addition to these release notes, Sun ONE Instant Messaging includes a set of documentation. Online help is installed with the product, other documents can be accessed from the following location:

http://docs.sun.com/db/prod/sunone

 

Software and Hardware Requirements


This section discusses the requirements for installing the Sun ONE Instant Messaging software. Before installing, make sure you have met the minimum hardware and operating system requirements. JRE 1.3 and 1.4 are supported by both server and client.

Note A portal deployment of Sun ONE Instant Messaging requires Sun ONE Portal Server 6.0 which currently supports Solaris 8 and 9.

Supported Platforms for the Server

This release of Sun ONE Instant Messaging supports the following platforms for the server: A list of recommended patches for Solaris 8 can be found at:

http://access1.sun.com/patch.public/

Hardware Requirements for the Server

The basic minimum hardware requirements for installing Sun ONE Instant Messaging Release 6.0 are as follows:

Supported Client Operating Systems

This release supports the following client platforms:

Browser Requirements

On Windows, Instant Messenger can be run in the browser's java plugin, using Netscape 4.7x, 7 or later, Mozilla 1.2 or later, or Internet Explorer 5.0 or later.

HTML links can be exchanged over Instant Messaging and clicked-on from Instant Messenger. When a link is activated, Instant Messenger invokes a browser. The following OS/browser combinations are supported:

Hardware Requirements for the Client

Instant Messenger consumes between 20 and 40 MB of memory on most platforms. Size memory by including footprint of other applications and operating systems used. In most cases, at least 128 MB RAM is recommended in order to run Instant Messaging and other applications comfortably. This number is higher when using high footprint operating systems such as Windows XP.

Note about Unix client deployments

As of this writing, the installation of Java and Java Web Start on Unix desktop systems (Linux or Solaris) is somewhat cumbersome for the average end-user. In particular, the installation of Java Web Start is a separate operation from the initial Java installation. For this reason, it is recommended that Java and Java Web Start be installed on a shared disk accessible to all users over NFS. Once this is done, a tailored version the configjavaws script may be run by each user to initialize their Java Web Start configuration. This script creates or update the javaws.cfg file with a specific java version. It also adds an entry for Java Web Start in the the ~/.mailcap and ~/.mime.types files, thereby allowing the browser to invoke Java Web Start to handle JNLP documents. Once this is done, there is no need for each user to download or install Java.

Installation and Upgrade Notes


For a complete description regarding installation please refer to the Sun ONE Instant Messaging Installation Guide. Known problems with the install and uninstall procedures are listed in the section "Known Problems and Limitations". Sometimes problems can occur during an install or uninstall of Sun ONE Instant Messaging that result in both install and uninstall being unable to complete. In this circumstance, you need to manually remove all the components so that a fresh install can be attempted. On Solaris, perform the following steps:

  1. Create a .uninstall file in $BASEDIR/SUNWiim. Where $BASEDIR is the directory where Sun ONE Instant Messaging was installed. The default value for this is /opt. The content of this file should be:
    DS_DIRMGR_DN="$DIR_MGR"
    DS_DIRMGR_PASSWORD="$PASS"
    DS_HOST="$HOST"
    DS_PORT="$PORT"
    where $DIR_MGR is the distinguished name of the Directory Manager, $PASS is the password of the Directory Manager, $HOST is the host name of the machine where Directory server is installed and $PORT is the port on which the Directory server is running.

  2. pkgrm -v SUNWiimid

  3. pkgrm -v SUNWiimps

  4. pkgrm -v SUNWiimc

  5. pkgrm -v SUNWiimd

  6. pkgrm -v SUNWiimm

  7. pkgrm -v SUNWiimjd

  8. pkgrm -v SUNWiim

  9. rm $BASEDIR/SUNWiim/.uninstall

  10. rm -rf $BASEDIR/SUNWiim

  11. rm /var/sadm/install/productregistry

Upgrading a Standalone Deployment

With regard to client/server communication protocol, a 3.0.1 Messenger client can communicate with the 6.0 release of the server, however the 6.0 release of Instant Messenger requires the 6.0 server. Server to server communication is compatible between 3.0.1 and 6.0 releases of the server. No changes are required to the server configuration (in the file iim.conf) and no migration is required of other server-related data. Refer also to Appendix B "Upgrading Sun ONE Instant Messaging" in the Sun ONE Instant Messaging Installation Guide.

Some resources for Instant Messenger have changed:

The following steps should be followed to upgrade Instant Messenger resources:

Upgrading a Deployment with Portal

Currently, Sun ONE Portal Server 6.0. must be used and the 3.0 Messenger client cannot be used with it. The following links have been changed in the application channel: The following steps should be followed to preserve portal/Instant Messaging integration:
  1. Install Sun ONE Portal Server 6.0.

  2. Upgrade Instant Messaging from version 3.0.1 to 6.0. The Instant Messaging channel and Archive components should be selected during this process.

  3. Ensure that the Identity 5.1 Authentication Provider is used for server configuration, in the iim.conf file as follows:

API Changes

Applications built using the iPlanet Collaboration API 3.0 will work with the 6.0 release of the server, however the 6.0 version of the API jar files cannot be used with an application built using the iPlanet Collaboration API. For applications that have been built using the iPlanet Collaboration API, note that it has been rebranded as the Sun ONE Instant Messaging Service API. The following package name changes have been made: To migrate an application to release 6.0, change the package names in import statements as necessary and recompile.

Troubleshooting


This section documents some common problems that can occur during installation and after reconfiguring a deployment. Various system components log their operation which can be extremely useful when trying to isolate a problem. For details, refer to the section titled: Managing Logging, in Chapter 2 of the Administrator's Guide: Administering Sun ONE Instant Messaging Server and Multiplexor. The various log files are listed here (with their default locations on Solaris).

The multiplexor and server logs are in mux.log and server.log, by default in the directory /var/opt/SUNWiim/default/log. The logging level is controlled in the iim.conf configuration file via the properties iim.log.iim_mux.severity and iim.log.iim_mux.severity. These can have the values: fatal, error, warning, notice, info and debug.

For portal deployments, logging configuration is determined by the com.iplanet.services.debug.level property (its values are: message, warning, error and off).

The locations for the desktop and archive log files are:

Logging information for Instant Messenger can be obtained by enabling logging output from the Java Web Start application manager or the Java plug-in manager.

Below some symptoms and possible causes and advice are listed for some common problems:

Problem: Instant Messenger does not load or start

Possible causes:

Where to find clues: Problem: Connection refused, timed out

Possible causes:

Where to find clues: Problem: Authentication errors

Possible causes:

Where to find clues:


Problem: Instant Messaging channel display error

Possible causes:

Where to find clues: Problem: Instant Messaging content is not archived

Possible causes:

Where to find clues:


Problem: Server-to-server communication fails to start

Possible causes:

Where to find clues:

 

Known Problems and Limitations


As of the writing of this document, the following defects were known.

Attention! Patches are issued on a frequent basis. If you encounter one of these problems, contact Sun Support to enquire about the availability of a fix.


ID

Summary
4609599 Font customizations have no effect on Japanese or Chinese characters.

When using Instant Messenger, if the Bold, Italic or Underline buttons are pressed prior to entering Japanese or Chinese characters, the buttons have no effect on the displayed font of the characters.
4632723 Idle detection is not implemented for Mac OS.

If a user leaves their Instant Messaging session their absence cannot be automatically detected on Mac OS.

Workaround:

Mac OS users need to explicitly set their presence status as AWAY, prior to leaving.
4708922 Drag and drop of contacts does not work on some platforms.

Drag and drop on MAC OS does not move the highlighted bar on the contact entries in the direction of the drag and does not show the highlighted bar.

On Windows, drag and drop of contacts only works with JRE 1.4 (not 1.3).
4712903 When using the Spanish locale, the online help link is incorrect.

This relates to the standalone configuration of the server. The main documentation link in the Instant Messaging launch page for Spanish points to an incorrect location.

Workaround:

Edit the launch page (.../es/index.html) and include the correct path on line 121.
4780606 "Unable to make network connection" panel does not mention the cause of the problem.

During installation, the "Unable to make network connection" panel does not specify the cause for not being able to make the network connection.

Workaround:

The most likely cause is that the hostname and domainname detected by the installer is not pingable. Try correcting it and then click Next.
4795970 When the Instant Messaging server is used with Identity server, the Instant Messaging server will not run under a user other than root.

When used with the Identity server the Instant Messaging server must run with root privileges.

Workaround:

In this situation the Instant Messaging server must run with root privileges. In the iim.conf file, enter the following lines:

iim.user=root
iim.group=other
4803224 After the server first starts up, an attempt to login using Instant Messenger fails.

After the server has just started up, the first login attempt fails resulting in the the pop-up message: "Server not responding. This may be due to a protocol version incompatibility. Please restart Instant Messenger and try again."

Workaround:

Log in a second time, it is not necessary to exit Instant Messenger.
4806791 Alerts with embedded images are not rendered faithfully.

When a recipient receives an alert with embedded image(s) the images are not centered and font information present in the accompanying text is lost.
4814749 After reinstalling or upgrading the Instant Messaging Channel and Archive component, the search configuration is reset.

If the Instant Messaging Channel and Archive component is upgraded or reinstalled, the search categories are lost and document level security is set to "off", potentially creating a security problem.

Workaround:

Manually reset the search configuration after reinstall or upgrade:

  1. Make a backup of /var/opt/SUNWps/http-* directories.

  2. Run the Instant Messaging installation or uninstallation.

  3. Restore the directories from the backup.
4810627 When using the command-line install (setup -nodisplay), navigation back to a previous page is not possible.

During a command-line install, a user should be able to return to the previous page of choices by entering a left-angle bracket ("<") command. This does not work correctly, for example, at the point where the user selects the default component set to be installed.

Workaround:

Either use the GUI-based installer or restart the command-line installer.
4821535 When using Instant Messenger with Linux and sounds are enabled, they do not always play.

On Linux sounds are not always played when they should be, thus when receiving a new alert the sound may not be played. (This is a problem in the Java runtime.)
4822142 Server-to-server communication glitches.

If a User A on Server A invites User B on Server B then User B might get the chat invitation message but may not be able to post instant messages after accepting the invitation.

Workaround:

Send another invite message.
4822841 Presence access control does not work across federated Instant Messaging servers.

If a user is logged onto one Instant Messaging server (allowing all to access their presence by default) and subsequently denies presence access to another user (who is logged in to another server), the first user's presence is still available even though it has been denied.
4823015
 Keyboard navigation of server combo box does not work.

You cannot select the desired server from the editable combo box using the keyboard's arrow keys.

Workaround:

Use the mouse to select the desired server.

4846540 If a Windows user has a double-byte name, then Instant Messenger cannot be started from a shortcut.

If a Java webstart shortcut is created for the user that has a double-byte name, then Instant Messenger will not launch from the shortcut.

Workaround:

Change the target value of shortcut to $javaws $url,
where $javaws is the command which is used to invoke the Java webstart Application Manager and $url is the URL of the .jnlp file used to launch Instant Messenger.
4849420 Uninstall does not always stop the multiplexor.

If you uninstall the Instant Messaging server component, Instant Messenger does not stop the multiplexor.

Workaround:

Manually terminate the multiplexor process.
4839214 On MAC OS, Font Color Menu in the Format Menu of the Chat window is blank.

On MAC OS with JDK 1.4.1 if you click on the Font Color Menu inside the Format Menu of the chat window, blank entries are displayed.

Workaround:

Select the color from the Tool bar present in the chat window.
4846528 URL link in Instant Messaging News Group does not launch the browser.

If the News Message contains a URL link, clicking on the link does not launch the browser.

Workaround:

Either use the Web Poll feature or Copy the link and paste it in the browser window.
4846531 Ability to attach files mistakenly provided for news messages.

The news functionality does not support message attachments. Yet the user interface allows users to attach files to news messages. This causes files to appear lost in the transfer.

4846542 Trying to print from the MAC OS hangs Instant Messenger.

On MAC OS, if you try to print a message from within Instant Messenger, it hangs.

Workaround:

Copy the message and paste it in some other application capable of printing the message.
4849527 Sometimes the multiplexor hangs.

If you try to stop and then refresh the multiplexor, it hangs.

Workaround:

  1. Shut down the multiplexor.
    You may have to kill it.

  2. Remove all files in the lock directory.
    By default, this directory is var/opt/SUNWiim/default/lock on Solaris.

  3. Restart the multiplexor.
4849916 Portal Instant Messaging Channel does not show contacts that are LDAP groups.

If the contact list contains the LDAP groups then the Instant Messaging Channel does not display the contacts.

4851386
 Backspace of first character of chat message deletes the whole message.

If you type a message, then move the cursor back to the second position, then remove the first character, the entire message is removed.

Workaround:

Use the delete key to remove the first character.
4852882
 Calendar reminder formatting issues.

Instant Messaging Task Due Reminder has blank Reminder: field

If the content-type configured for calendar reminders is text/xml, the alarm description "Reminder:" field is not displayed.
If the location field of an event is left blank, the following will be included in the calendar popup reminder message:
Location: {LOCATION}
4855649
 Codebase URL not set properly during upgrade from 3.0.1 to 6.0.

After upgrading, you may be unable to launch Instant Messenger via Java Webstart.

This may be due to the codebase URL parameter missing the leading http://. For instance:
<jnlp ...
    codebase="im.example.com:80"
    ...

Workaround:

prepend the http prefix:

<jnlp ...
    codebase="http://im.example.com:80"
    ...
4857600
 Show participants option does not work immediately.

The change is not taken into account in the in-memory representation of the room. However, it is saved properly on the server.

Workaround:

logout and log back in.
4858299
 Del key does not delete the contacts or contact folder.
4858320
 Can supposedly invite users with NONE access to conference room.

The user does not actually receive the invitation.
4860906
 Can't create conf_room/news using certain gb18030 characters.

Since conf and news ACL filenames are written using names fed from Instant Messenger, there seems to be a problem creating ACLs when the names contain Tibetan/Arabic chars (other "usual" Chinese chars work).
4861638
 Install hangs while installing on Windows.

In some random cases, the Windows installer hangs while installing Instant Messenger resources. This does not happen consistently.

Workaround:

Terminate the installation process and start it again.
4862326
 Instant Messenger consumes all swap space on SunRay server.

In SunRay deployments, situations have arisen where Instant Messenger of one of the users consumed all the memory of the system. This problem is still under investigation as of this writing, and a hotfix will be made available soon.

Workaround:

Cap the amount of virtual memory each user can use.

Use the Solaris resource manager, or set plimit on the parent dtlogin process and every process will inherit that limit. For example:
# plimit -v 1000m,1000m `cat /var/dt/Xpid`
sets limit to 1Gb.
4862665
 Uninstall fails if named policies exist.

Install the Instant Messaging service component and add other policies using the Identity server console. Uninstall fails with the following message:
Named policies exist. Cannot remove service.
Workaround:

Prior to installing, remove all Instant Messaging policies manually. If you already unintalled partially, you may have to select partial uninstall with only the Instant Messaging service component selected.
4868740
 Focus on chat input not set after changing tab.

If you have a chat frame with multiple tabs open, clicking on a tab that is not the current tab does not automatically reset the focus on the newly selected tab's input/compose text pane. This problem happens with JRE 1.4.

Workaround:

Use mouse or keyboard to move the focus to compose window.
4869229
 Two windows seen after client reconnects.

On Windows, when the tooltray feature is used (default), a reconnection creates a new contact list frame and the old one does not get destroyed. This creates the illusion of two active windows.

Workaround:

Iconify both windows and deiconify the only one left.
4871150
 Can not print out to printer from Instant Messenger using File | Print menu.

Workaround:

Save as HTML and then print.
4900580
 Installation program fails to read or write Windows registry.

The external manifestations of this problem are as follows:
  • The following warning appears during installation:
    Warning: Not running as administrator

  • After installation, there is no mention of the Instant Messaging software in the Add/Remove Software dialog box.

  • After installation, Instant Messaging server and multiplexor services do not appear in the Service Control Panel.

Workaround:

WindowsNativeToolkit_5.5.1_1.exe is an executable used by the java installer to read and modify the registry. The installation program copies this file into the environment's temporary directory. You can find out the temporary directory location by looking up the value of the TEMP environment variable. To do this, complete the following:

  1. At the command prompt, type set.
    A list of variables and their values is displayed.

  2. Scroll down to the line that displays the TEMP variable and note its value.


The installation program copies WindowsNativeToolkit_5.5.1_1.exe under the wrong name. The installation program incorrectly creates the file WindowsNativeToolkit_5.5.4_1.exe instead of the correct WindowsNativeToolkit_5.5.1_1.exe. Notice the minor version difference.

To fix this, you need to rename the file and then rerun the installer.

If you have already completed the installation, follow these steps:

  1. Rename the windows toolkit executable to WindowsNativeToolkit_5.5.1_1.exe.

  2. Remove the software by deleting the installation directory.

  3. Reinstall.
If you have not started the installation, do the following:

  1. Run the installer until you see the following Warning:
    Warning: Not running as Administrator

  2. Exit the install program.

  3. Rename the windows toolkit executable.

  4. Re-run the installer.
4964719
 Selected message cannot be deleted from News management.
4975803
 Netscape 4.79 is not supported.

Workaround:

Use Netscape 7 or later.



How to Report Problems


If you have problems using the software, contact customer support using one of the following mechanisms:

Please have the following information available prior to contacting support. This helps to ensure that our support staff can best assist you in resolving problems:


For More Information


Useful Sun ONE information can be found at the following Internet locations:


Copyright 2004 Sun Microsystems, Inc. All rights reserved.
Last Updated January 11, 2004