Why Something is disabling Lotus Notes Agent
The Design Update task is a system process that updates database design from a database template. This task’s goal is to keep the database and the template in synch. When either the database or the template have been changed, and the user did not select the “Do not update” design property for specific design elements, the Design Update task updates the database to match the template. This sometimes causes problems for agents, typically described as “something is turning off my enabled agents in the middle of the night!”
This happens because the user has made a significant change in the agent in the database. By significant change, we mean something other than enable/disable status of the agent or the name of the server on which the agent is scheduled to run. The most common change that causes this problem is the change to the schedule of the agent, but it also could be a change to the agent code or some other part of the agent design.
Prior to Notes/Domino , the Design Update task recognized changes in the database as well as the template. In Design Update now keeps track of changes only in the template. This lets you make changes to the database and keep them, unless the template itself had some significant changes. Changes you make to the template take precedence (because typically the changes in the template indicate bug fixes or some other administrative change). If the template is used to update the database, agents revert to the versions in the template, which typically are disabled.
You can suppress the agent design update by selecting the option “Do not allow design refresh/replace to modify” in the Agent Properties box.
It is necessary to disable the agent because when the agent is updated from the template, the agent from the template (including the signature in the template) replaces the agent in the user database. The agent is disabled to force the user to sign it and thus, to make it run with the appropriate security rights. (Otherwise, the mail would come from Lotus Notes Template Developers among other undesirable things.) Because the user ID file does not exist on the server, it is not possible to re-sign the agent with the user ID automatically. The only ID that is available on the server is the server ID, but having the agent run under the server ID is also undesirable.
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