Connections by Milan Matejic
HCL Connections – Docs (Proxy) not Working After Installing IFPH63778 IBM WebSphere Application Server Fix 
By Milan Matejic | 2/7/25, 2:23 AM | Infrastructure - Connections | Added by Roberto Boccadoro
If you're like me and want to keep your IBM WebSphere Application Servers up to date with the latest patches, you might want to skip the installation of IFPH63778 for 8.5.5.26 version of WebSphere, or at least exercise caution before doing so.
After installing IFPH63778 on my WebSphere servers hosting HCL Connections Docs applications, Docs Proxy application was unable to communicate with the required application servers, effectively breaking my HCL Connections Docs deployment.
HCL Connections – Component Pack Update – MongoDB Security Settings Update Issue
By Milan Matejic | 2/6/25, 3:19 AM | Infrastructure - Connections | Added by Roberto Boccadoro
During the HCL Connections Component Pack 8.0 CR8 update, some security settings are modified for the MongoDB replica set used by the HCL Connections Component Pack. This is managed by the check-and-update-mongo5-security Kubernetes (K8s) job, which creates the check-and-update-mongo5-security-* pod to change the security settings of the replica set. Once the job completes successfully, the K8s pod and the corresponding job are marked with the status complete(d)
However, in one of the HCL Connections environments I am working on, the job didn’t complete successfully. During my initial analysis, I found the following error in the log of the check-and-update-mongo5-security pod....
HCL Connections Mail Plug-in Deployment – Missing Information in the Documentation
By Milan Matejic | 5/23/23, 12:18 AM | Infrastructure - Connections | Added by Roberto Boccadoro
If you are planning to deploy the HCL Connections Mail Plug-in, take note of the KB0092821 knowledge base article. This is a mandatory step that must be done in HCL Connections 8 CR1 and newer environments. If the steps described in KB0092821 article are not followed, you will get the following error message in the browser console: Error: Unable to load https://<mailserver_hostname> status: 403
HCL Connections 8 – PDF Export Issues After Installing CNX in a Clustered WAS Environment
By Milan Matejic | 3/24/23, 5:12 AM | Infrastructure - Connections | Added by Roberto Boccadoro
Recently I encountered an issue with PDF Export, right after the installation of HCL Connections applications in a multi-node, clustered, IBM WebSphere Application Server environment. This problem only occurs in a multi-node WAS environment.
In the HCL Connections GUI, in the “PDF Export Access” settings of the”Edit Community” menu (Community –> Community Actions –> Edit Community –> PDF Export Access), the following error was displayed:
Error 500: org.springframework.web.util.NestedServletException: Handler dispatch failed; nested exception is java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: com/ibm/ess/ic/ic360/security/tai/Ic360ImpersonateUserTAI
Kubernetes – Host Entries
By Milan Matejic | 3/18/22, 3:22 AM | Infrastructure - Connections | Added by Roberto Boccadoro
As Kubernetes pods do not make use of the Kubernetes nodes/hosts "host" file (/etc/hosts), which can be a challenge or a blessing, do not despair if you find yourself in an environment in which some DNS entries are missing. There is an easy workaround to "get you going".
HCL Connections – Orient Me “Loop”
By Milan Matejic | 3/17/22, 12:55 PM | Infrastructure - Connections | Added by Roberto Boccadoro
After deploying Orient Me, every try to open the new Orient Me homepage would result in a "loop", the user was being redirected from the Orient Me (/social) page to the Homepage application (/homepage) and back again to the Orient Me page.
The root cause for the problem was not a bug or an error in the HCL Connections code, but rather the configuration of the HCL Connections Blue Stack and other components in the IT landscape of this environment.
HCL Connections CP – Enabling Elasticsearch Metrics
By Milan Matejic | 3/16/22, 3:50 AM | Infrastructure - Connections | Added by Roberto Boccadoro
Recently, when enabling Elasticsearch metrics, I ran into an issue with the "config_blue_metrics.py" script. Which was failing every time I tried to run it .
After looking into the WebSphere Metrics Application logs, “AppsCluster” if your HCL Connections Blue Stack environment is installed as a “Medium deployment”, I’ve noticed the following error:
[10/3/22 17:26:54:477 IST] 0000016c LotusConnecti E Unable to access the required data
javax.servlet.ServletException: java.io.FileNotFoundException: SRVE0190E: File not found: /configsetter
....
HCL Connections Docs – 2.0.1 Update Issue
By Milan Matejic | 4/7/21, 1:30 AM | Infrastructure - Connections | Added by Andi Kress
Lately I had an issue upgrading from HCL Docs 2.0 CR3 iFix009 to 2.0.1. While upgrading “Docs Editor” application, using upgrade/install scripts, I was blessed with the following error code
HCL Connections 7 – PDF Export Issues
By Milan Matejic | 4/2/21, 4:40 AM | Infrastructure - Connections | Added by Roberto Boccadoro
After upgrading to HCL Connections 7, the new PDF Export feature didn't work. By clicking on the new "PDF" button inside the Wiki Page and trying to export it as a PDF, I would get an error in the GUI. In my two environments where I have encountered this, I had to do the following steps...
HCL Connections Invite – Issues when using TDS/SDS as User Repository
By Milan Matejic | 3/3/21, 5:04 AM | Infrastructure - Connections | Added by Roberto Boccadoro
Take care when deploying the HCL Connections Invite application using the TDS (Tivoli Directory Server)/SDS (IBM Security Directory Server) as user repository. The following information from the official documentation is wrong.
HCL Connections & Kerberos Authentication Protocol Issue
By Milan Matejic | 1/12/21, 2:46 AM | Infrastructure - Connections | Added by Roberto Boccadoro
After implementing Kerberos Authentication protocol for HCL Connections, as described in the official documentation (HCL Connections and IBM WebSphere documentation) and restarting the whole environment, the “synchronization status” of the Nodes in the IBM WebSphere ISC Console appeared to be “unknown”. All the HCL Connections Applications were running, there were no errors in GUI and the SSO was working without any issues.
HCL Notes Connections Plug-In – Login via SPNEGO not possible
By Milan Matejic | 10/20/20, 3:29 AM | Infrastructure - Connections | Added by Roberto Boccadoro
If you are trying to use SPNEGO as the means for authenticating HCL Notes Connections Plug-In and you run into an issue, check if "Use the alias host name for the application server" option is used on Websphere Application Server and if that is the case try turning it off.
HCL Connections – URL Preview Tip
By Milan Matejic | 10/1/20, 5:03 AM | Infrastructure - Connections | Added by Roberto Boccadoro
If you have implemented or planing to implement the "URL Preview" feature for HCL Connections, make sure you import the Root Certificate for "Let’s Encrypt" certificate authority inside the java trust store. By default, the root certificate of "Let’s Encrypt" certificate authority is not in the java trust store which the HCL
We Have Lost The “wasadmin” Account Password!
By Milan Matejic | 3/31/20, 2:22 AM | Infrastructure - Connections | Added by Roberto Boccadoro
If you have lost the "wasadmin" account password or any other local WebSphere account, there is a rather simple way to recover it. Just connect to the server where WebSphere Deployment Manager is running, via RDP or SSH, depending on the OS of the server, and open the "security.xml" file located under "<WebSphere_Installation_Directory>/AppServer/profiles/<Deployment_Manager_Profile>/config/cells/<Cell_Name>" for example…
HCL Connections 6.5 – Available for Download
By Milan Matejic | 12/2/19, 5:50 AM | Infrastructure - Connections | Added by Roberto Boccadoro
Even before the official Announcement on 4th of December, HCL has made Connections 6.5 available for Download at the Flexnet Site. Happy Downloading. :-)
Live from Tokyo – In Vienna
By Milan Matejic | 11/21/19, 1:39 PM | Infrastructure - Connections | Added by Oliver Busse
My employer, Axians ICT Austria GmbH, is sponsoring “HCL Tokyo Live Viewing Party” and hereby you are invited.
In Addition to the Live Stream from Tokyo, the Agenda is stacked with sessions about HCL Digital Solutions software, which will be held by Axians and other event sponsors. We also have a special guest, Cornelius Granig, the author of “The Darknet”.
HCL Connections – The Future is Bright
By Milan Matejic | 7/23/19, 2:29 AM | Infrastructure - Connections | Added by John Oldenburger
Yesterday I took part of the Webcast, “HCL Connections: The Future is Bright”, it was hosted by “DNUG” (a big thumbs up for that). In this Webcast Danille Baptiste showed us the future plans for HCL Connections. And indeed I do think that the future of the product is bright.
IBM Connections – Restricting the Community Types Users can create
By Milan Matejic | 6/13/19, 3:25 AM | Infrastructure - Connections | Added by Roberto Boccadoro
A while ago we had a requirement to restrict the Community types users can create, in the following I will describe how you can do that. First of these settings are primarily managed in "communities-policy.xml", you must do the following steps to check the file out and be able to edit it.
IBM Connections – How to change Personal Notification Preferences for all Users
By Milan Matejic | 3/29/19, 4:54 AM | Infrastructure - Connections | Added by Roberto Boccadoro
You may find yourself in a situation where you need to change the personal IBM Connections E-Mail Notification Settings for all Users. IBM Connections Users have the following options to choose from: There is a set of Default Settings which is applied to every user, as soon as the TDI-Sync runs, and the user is created in a database. So, the first thing to do, is to change these default settings. The official documentation does a pretty good job explaining the possibilities you have here, like Locking the User Notification Preferences, and the steps needed to apply the changes, so I won´t go in greater detail on those here.
IBM Connections Docs – Issue with File Preview in Google Chrome
By Milan Matejic | 3/5/19, 5:22 AM | Infrastructure - Connections | Added by Roberto Boccadoro
I recently deployed a new Connections Environment, together with IBM Connections Docs Applications. After the installation I have encountered an issue with a File Preview, some files cannot be viewed in a Google Chrome Browser. Screenshot of the issue: We could reproduce this issue only with ".doc" and ".docx" files and only in Google Chrome,…
IBM Connections Plug-in for Microsoft Outlook – End of Support
By Milan Matejic | 1/31/19, 3:02 AM | Infrastructure - Connections | Added by Matteo Bisi
There was a lot of speculation recently what happened with “IBM Connections Plug-in for Microsoft Outlook”, it was removed from the Solution Catalog without any Information prior to the removal.
Now it is official, yesterday an official article was published stating that the Plug-in will not be available for download in the Solution Catalog.