HCL Domino Ideas Portal

Welcome to the #dominoforever Product Ideas Forum! The place where you can submit product ideas and enhancement request. We encourage you to participate by voting on, commenting on, and creating new ideas. All new ideas will be evaluated by HCL Product Management & Engineering teams, and the next steps will be communicated. While not all submitted ideas will be executed upon, community feedback will play a key role in influencing which ideas are and when they will be implemented.


For more information on products and upcoming events around #dominoforever, please visit: HCL Domino Page


Add a new idea Subscribe
Status Already Exists
Workspace Admin Client
Created by Guest
Created on May 4, 2026

RELATED IDEAS

Restore detailed LOAD DESIGN console output (regression in 14.5.1)

Up to and including previous releases to 14.5.1, the LOAD DESIGN command listed the databases that were updated by the design refresh directly in the Domino server console. This provided immediate and essential feedback to developers and support staff.

In 14.5.1, this behavior has changed. The console output is now limited to:

[2808:0002-0804] 2026-04-30 09:35:33   Database Designer started  
[2808:0002-0804] 2026-04-30 09:35:35   Design refresh completed. Logfile: [D:\IBM\Domino\data\IBM_TECHNICAL_SUPPORT\design_update.log] Runtime: 1 seconds  
[2808:0002-0804] 2026-04-30 09:35:35   Database Designer shutdown

As a result, there is no longer any visibility in the console into which databases were actually updated.


Impact:

This is a significant regression in usability:

  • Developers have lost instant visual feedback and must now either

    • log on to the server filesystem to inspect design_update.log, or

    • rely on the -mt parameter to email the log contents.

  • We run LOAD DESIGN several times per hour on our development servers when working on upcoming releases. Requiring email checks or server access for every run is not operationally viable.

  • Our support organization also uses built-in application functionality that triggers LOAD DESIGN from version servers during upgrades and hotfix deployments.
    In these scenarios, support personnel rely on console output to verify results without connecting to customer servers. This workflow is no longer possible.

Request:

Please confirm whether this change is intentional. If so, we strongly request:

  • restoration of database-level output in the server console, or

  • a new option/switch that enables the previous detailed console logging behavior.

The removal of this feedback significantly increases manual effort and impacts both development and support workflows.

  • Attach files
  • Guest
    May 5, 2026

    Daniel Nashed posted a very complete response in the Discord chat too:
    There is a command-line switch as well. The new functionality was introduced in 14.5 as part of the AutoUpdate functionality. There was a longer thread in the EAP forum to ask for detail. All the changes have been implemented like this on purpose. It is not a regression. It is intended and the developer made sure it can be all reverted if you want it in a different way. Beside the notes.ini settings there are command-line overrides. Here is the current 14.5.1 command-line. You can force it both ways. Set the notes.ini to turn the new logging for an enabled it only for certain design refresh operations. Or the other way round. There is no replace functionality in the design task. just a refresh. Replace functionality is implemented in the convert task. The whole feature was community driven. It was raised in the EAP forum. There is no one size that fits all. Everyone works differently. Admins and Developers have different needs. That's why the change can be reverted back to the previous behavior. See current help in next message...

    lo design -?
    Purpose:   Refreshes database designs from their template.
    Usage:     Load DESIGN [source] [target] [options]...

    [source]:  Server name containing the templates. Default is LOCAL.
    [target]:  Server name of databases to refresh.  Default is LOCAL.
    [options]:
    -d name    Directory name (relative to data directory) to refresh.
    -f name    File name of database to refresh.
    -i name    Database, folder or a file name containing a list of pathnames,
               each of which may be a database or a folder to refresh design(s).
    -t name    Only refresh design of databases with this design template name.
    -sd        Refresh design of System Databases in dominosystemdbs.ind.
    -adm       Refresh design only if current server is Administration Server of database.
    -mt name   Mail design update log to the Internet Address name.
    -log       Explicitly enable logging of design changes to file.
    -nologfile Logging will be redirected to the console.
    -regex     <pattern>   Run on databases matching the regular expression in pattern
    Reply
  • Guest
    May 4, 2026

    Never mind, turns ut there is a notes.ini parameter for this, DISABLE_DESIGN_LOG=1. HCL Support just did not know about it.

    Reply
                                    Copyright © 2025 HCLSoftware Limited