Origina Experts Develop HCL Domino Bug Fix Regardless of Version or Support Status
January 3, 2025
3 min read
January 3, 2025
3 min read
Friday the 13th proved to be quite unlucky for HCL Domino users as countless large companies experienced a mail routing failure bug in their internal email systems.
The Domino development team identified a sleeper “Y2K-type” bug in the system that had somehow gone unnoticed for 30 years and would affect all Domino server versions as of December 13, 2024.
Restarting the server would result in a router error and delivery failures due to a routing loop, according to HCL. Mail rules would also start failing, and Domino would only use single mail.box regardless of what the configuration document called for.
HCL, which acquired Domino from IBM, scrambled to find a solution. In the past, OEM software vendors would distribute fixes for Priority One software bugs to all licensees — whether or not they were under support contracts. It was considered the right thing to do. However, the OEM software industry is a very different beast today.
Eventually, HCL did release an interim fix to resolve the problem but, of course, there was a catch.
The HCL Domino bug fix would not be available to customers without active support entitlements with HCL and even then, only the latest releases of Domino
HCL’s statement explained that “Fix Packs for other releases will be made based on demand and whether we can build them. For customers with prior releases, e.g., 8.5.X, the only option is to upgrade.”
Essentially, what HCL was saying is any Domino customer who was under third-party software support or not under support at all would have to return to OEM support and then upgrade at a significant cost before they would they fix a Priority One bug that the coders of Domino themselves had caused in the first place.
HCL then proudly, and as it turns out rather foolishly, announced that “No TPSS [third-party software support] can fix the issue or mitigate with a work-around.” HCL believed they themselves were the only ones capable of addressing this issue, which, again, was caused by those who had coded Domino.
This, of course, turned out to be completely untrue.
At Origina, we have long believed the landscape of software maintenance and support needs changing and, as such, we took a different approach to solving the Domino problem. We resolved the issue for our Domino customers through an independent solution — a fix that was specifically designed to address the bug without altering the underlying code and worked with all releases of Domino.
Our global independent experts also worked tirelessly to develop a solution that could be applied to all users regardless of their choice in support provider.
We successfully rolled out our independent solution to all our customers and have since been supporting any customers currently utilizing the unsupported versions of Domino. Our goal is to continue providing this support to any, and all, who need it.
“Unlike OEMs, we do not restrict the versions we support or force you onto a costly and risky upgrade path,” says John Tracey, Origina Vice President of Customer Operations. “Our fix works seamlessly across all versions of Domino, empowering customers to continue using the version they know and love.”
While HCL was busy trying to prove that you were powerless without them, we at Origina got to work empowering our customers with the means to choose the software maintenance and support that best works for them.
The distinction is clear.
Origina is an independent software maintenance provider who delivers proactive solutions that fix software defects and vulnerabilities in ways OEMs often cannot or will not.
The HCL Domino bug was activated on Friday, December 13, 2024.
By Tuesday, December 17, 2024, our independent solution was rolled out successfully to all our customers.
If you’re still struggling with issues with Domino or want to explore the countless ways you can take back control of your IT estate from OEMs, contact us today for a free consultation.
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