Trouble shooting Mapi Mail (SIX)

Trouble shooting

A short word on incompatibilities
The following short excerpt from Eudora™ illustrates an important point:

"…Eudora must install Eudora-specific replacements for the Microsoft MAPI libraries. When a user enables the Eudora MAPI system, Eudora dynamically installs/uninstalls the Eudora MAPI replacement libraries to/from the Windows SYSTEM directory. This installation can be "persistent" or temporary - ... This approach (temporary) gives the user the most flexibility and preserves the user's ability to use both Microsoft Mail/Exchange and Eudora for handling MAPI messages. If we permanently replace the Microsoft MAPI DLLs with the Eudora MAPI DLLs, then applications such as the Microsoft Fax service bundled with Microsoft Exchange would no longer work…"

How Eudora™ installs itself as the primary MAPI provider is representative of all third party implementations. SuperOffice is a pure MAPI client and not a MAPI provider and is therefore dependent upon the actual MAPI sub-system installed. As long as that sub-system is either Microsoft's’ or is 100% compatible with Microsoft's’ and provides the basic functionality we (or any client) might need, things should work fine. However, if this is not the case, users might experience functionality that appears to be inconsistent with the documentation. These "bugs" are unfortunate, but there is very little that SuperOffice or any other third party MAPI client can do.

To date, we know of only one server problem with a third party MAPI provider, the one from Netscape™. For some reason that we have not been able to determine, Netscape™ does not respond to the MAPI command to get mail that might be in the mailbox.

Below you will find a list of the MAPI providers we have tested during development. This list is certainly not complete, however it should give you an overview of what systems we have tested and that (with some restrictions) do work with SuperOffice. You will also find a list of URLs’ in the "Further documentation" section that will point you to more detailed information sources about MAPI.

Certified Mail Clients

Windows MAPI drivers used during certification

Trouble Shooting

To trouble shoot your SuperOffice clients, try the following:

1. Check which application is set as the default provider for Simple MAPI Clients. If it is listed as being partially compatible, you may have to switch your MAPI provider application. If it is not listed and trying the other suggestions listed here does not cure the problem, contact us.
2. Check to see if the MAPI sub-system is busy with another client. There can be situations where the sub-system is busy processing commands from another MAPI client, Outlook Express for example. In this situation, you will have to quit that client before trying to use mail in SuperOffice.
3. Be sure that SOMail is correctly installed on the client machine. SOMail should be in the same directory (folder) as SuperOffice and the file extension .SOM should be mapped to it.
4. Be sure that the SuperOffice E-mail gateway (SoMaGate.exe) is installed correctly. On client machines, a shortcut to SoMaGate.exe should be in the Startup folder in the profile for that user or in the default profile for all users.
5. Be sure that the BCC (Blind Carbon Copy) field has not been deleted from the outgoing message. If the BCC field is deleted, the SoMaGate will never be sent the mail message after a user has made changes.
6. Be sure the information in the signature of a mail message is not deleted or corrupted. SoMaGate needs the information stored in the ‘signature’ area of a mail message to be able to map a previously sent mail message to its document representation in order to update the information stored in SuperOffice. If this information is missing or corrupted, SoMaGate will not be able to store the text of the message.

To check that SuperOffice Mail Gateway is working as it should:

1. Close SuperOffice Mail Gateway.
2. Write a test e-mail message and send it to the Mail Gateway e-mail address.
3. Check the Mail Gateway inbox to make sure that your e-mail message has been received.
4. Start SuperOffice Mail Gateway to make sure that the e-mail message has been read in and deleted. If that all works, then SuperOffice Mail Gateway is working.
   

Error Checklist

1. Is SOMAGATE.EXE running? (As shown by the icon in the taskbar.)
2. Is the correct Mail Gateway e-mail address specified in the Maintenance Client?
3. Are e-mail messages being received into the inbox?
4. Is the correct archive path set up in SOMAGATE.INI or SUPEROF5.INI?
5. Are e-mail messages disappearing from the inbox? (Check first that they are being received.)
6. Check that no-one has damaged the template, so that the BCC field is missing or that the document reference has disappeared.
7. Check the setting for the number of seconds between inbox updates.
8. Check that the network ID logged in to the computer has write-access to the subfolders of \SO_ARC on the server.
9. Check the file SOMAGATE.LOG. This is created the first time you run Mail Gateway. It records everything that happens while Mail Gateway is open.
10. Does the SOM file which the e-mail reference points to exist in the SuperOffice CRM 5 document archive? E-mail generated by Travel users who have not returned to base will not be in the central archive until the users perform a central update. There is also the possibility that someone has deleted a document before SOMAGATE was able to process it. E-mail messages in the SOMAGATE inbox will only disappear once the original is in the archive.
     

Further documentation:

For a general discussion of MAPI and further links:
http://www.eudora.com/developers/mapi.html
http://www.microsoft.com/win32dev/mapi/wmapi.htm

For a Frequently Asked Questions list (FAQ list) for MAPI.
http://www.microsoft.com/win32dev/mapi/mapifaq.htm

For an overview of the electronic messaging standard for the Microsoft® Windows™ Open Services Architecture (WOSA).
http://www.microsoft.com/win32dev/apiext/mapiwp.htm