Duffbert's Random Musings

Document Number:  1085177

Problem
While opening a Notes document containing a large file attachment you notice it takes a long time for the document to actually appear, particularly when the document is in a server-based database.  You are not attempting to open or view the actual file attached to the document, but simply the document which contains the attachment.  Why does it take so long to open the document, and is there a workaround?

Content
This issue can occur if a third party antivirus software is installed on the client and Notes integration is active.  De-activating the antivirus realtime virus protection for Lotus Notes will cause the documents to open quickly; however, you will be disabling realtime virus protection.

Under normal Notes operations, when a document containing an attachment is opened, Notes does not read the attachment into memory but simply shows a reference to the attachment via an icon.  When you detach, view, or save the attachment, then there would be a delay while the attachment is read and acted upon.  With anti-virus software programs that enable realtime protection for Lotus Notes, the attachments are scanned for viruses on the fly.  To scan the attachment, it has to be read into memory even when opening a document in Read mode.  This accounts for the delay.

Here is an example of disabling this feature in Norton AntiVirus Corporate Edition:

1.        Open Norton AntiVirus (NAV) Corporate Edition.
2.        Expand "Configure".
3.        Click "Lotus Notes Realtime Protection".
4.        On the right, uncheck the box for "Enable Lotus Notes realtime protection".
5.        Select OK and exit.

Please note that you are in effect disabling the Lotus Notes Realtime Protection!