As I mentioned a while back my ability to connect in to the IBM Sametime environment regularly makes my life easier, so it continue to frustrate me that almost a month after Notes 8.0.1 shipped the embedded Sametime client still can not access the extst.ibm.com servers. Chris Pepin blogged about this recently and others commented there as well. So someone please explain to me how the product is GA and shipping, but IBM seems to consider it a risk to the stability of the Sametime server? I haven’t seen the bleedyellow IM server have any issues, and I know plenty of people connecting to it with the Notes 8.0.1 client . IBM please fix this recurring issue once and for all, I am not even going to ask for support of Beta builds, but if you ship it and expect customers to implement it, you should support it.
I am getting the feeling they are scared people will use that as a mechanism to skip normal support channels and communications into IBM and hesitate to fix it.
Mitch – remember, IBM’s Sametime implementation is not the standard Sametime product. So there is reason to make sure they test new clients on it. I get that and agree with it.
The fact they can’t get that done by the time the product goes gold is just pure bullshit.
Agree 100% Mitch – no excuses. John, doesn’t fly with me, the extst service has been broken for years on many versions and many levels – and they can test it in a couple weeks not months or years. They should retire it and retract all the instructions ever put up if they’re not going to fix it once and for all.
The difference, of course, is that the bleedyellow IM server is administered by Chris Whisonant, uses Domino as it’s LDAP source and is housed at the Lotus 911 co-location facility. It’s therefore proof against anything but a deliberate attack.
(Though I suppose I may have just encouraged Mr. Pepin to launch one.
)
Hear hear. This sucks so bad it is beyond comprehension. It should have been fixed pre Lotusphere 2008.
Well guys,
It has nothing to do with Sametime 8 or the Notes client.
If you go to { Link } you will see they are actually running Sametime 3.1 which for some reason they haven’t upgraded it. And yes, it has been broken for a long time.
I must agree with Miller, probably they don’t want everybody pinging people inside IBM.
What is also not known by many, is that 8.01 is still banned form internal use on IBM sametime servers I believe.
Perhaps IBM needs to hire Global services for a few hundred dollars an hour to fix it?
It’s time for us to all blog about this, I’ve kept quiet on this outside the partner forum for years cos it is so embarrassing, but you know what, maybe it’s time for IBM to get embarrassed, I did that with the Sametime client updates and look at it now. We just need the press to publish an article something along the lines of “Do you really want a company to run your internal systems when it can’t run their own?”
IBM hide your heads in shame over this one.
8.0.1 is not banned. I use it myself.
@8 – 8.0.1 standard client is banned for me on extst.ibm.com
are you sure it’s working for you?
-Tim E. Brown
@8 are you on the IBM or the Lotus IM community inside IBM?
@10, IBM (messaging.ibm.com), Lotus (*.lotus.com) and im.bleedyellow.com.
@9, I was referring to @7’s comment on how 8.0.1 is internally.
Mitch, if it makes you feel any better, IBM disabled various clients inside IBM as well, sometimes without notice. At one time, the only way you could log into Sametime was if you were using the standalone Blue version (customized) of Sametime 7.5.1. Couldn’t connect with embedded version in Notes 8, couldn’t connect with Sametime 8 beta, nor any other application that made a sametime login on your behalf. You shoulda read our internal BlogCentral then. 🙂 Hoo boy.
I am now successfully using Sametime 8 embedded in Notes 8.0.1 client inside IBM. I believe the standalone Sametime 8 client works as well.
@11 & 13 – Of course, neither of those is the extst.ibm.com server, which is the implementation that we were all concerned with.
The standalone 8 client sporadically works when connecting to that host. Sometimes I connect, sometimes I don’t. Because I sometimes don’t, my communication with internal IBM resources is reduced. Then again, this might be a good thing, both for me and for IBM.
There are more than just connection issues with extst, there are also SIP errors and messages that the other end doesn’t receive. I have had many conversations with IBMers where the IMs I sent ending up being sent across via email so that they could read them and vice/verse.
Manual trackback (for now) – more to come.
{ Link }
I’ve always had network problems reaching extst.ibm.com. Cant even load it in a browser, firewall admins see the packets go out…but never reach the other end
I had escalated to John Del Pizzo….and that went nowhere 🙁
Hi folks, do you know if it this service is still running? I am trying to access it but I am unable to login, I tried through the web and it stays in connecting staty forever…
Hasn’t worked since Friday 15/01.