Apple limitations and restrictions

This topic describes known Apple device restrictions and limitations with HCL Traveler.

For a list of HCL Traveler problems that have been reported to Apple, see Known bugs with Apple devices and HCL Traveler.

Setup and login

Table 1. Setup and login issues
Problem Details

Microsoft Exchange account setup fails when setting up an account with HCL Traveler.

Verify that the mobile user is not trying to connect to the HCL Traveler server using an HTTP connection. Also verify that the Domino® administrator has configured the HTTP port to automatically redirect to SSL. Apple devices do not support redirection to SSL from within the Exchange ActiveSync account. This only applies for levels prior to iOS5.

Microsoft Exchange account setup fails with incorrect user ID message.

Verify that the user ID used to set up the Exchange account on the Apple device does not contain a / character. The Apple device does not send the correct credentials if the user ID contains a / character.

Apple devices do not handle multi-byte characters in login IDs.

Attempting to log in with a user ID with double-byte or multi-byte characters causes the Exchange account setup to fail. To work around this problem, use a login name alias that contains only single-byte characters.

Unable to access the Traveler home page from the Apple Safari browser on mobile device when user credentials have non-standard ASCII characters.

If you try to access the Traveler home page using credentials (name or password) that contain non-standard ASCII characters such as letters with an umlaut or diaeresis (ü), login can fail. This issue occurs because the Apple mobile Safari browser uses UTF-8 encoding while the Verse Mobile client and the Apple iOS Mail client use ISO-8859-1 encoding and the two standards don't use the same encoding for these non-standard characters.

To work around the issue, access the Traveler home page from a desktop browser. Or, rather than install the Apple profile from the Traveler home page, manually configure a Microsoft Exchange account.

Note: There is no issue with credentials that contain standard ASCII characters because UTF-8 and IS0-8859-1 use the same coding for them. Standard ASCII characters use codes 0-127 and include alphabetic characters and some special characters.

Not all default or policy settings apply to Apple devices.

HCL Traveler defined device Security settings apply to Apple devices. However, the device preference settings (Sync settings, filter settings, and device settings) do NOT apply to Apple devices.

Auto Sync does not work over a VPN connection.

Auto Sync messages may not flow over an Apple VPN connection. Therefore, mail, calendar and contacts will only receive new data when a sync is initiated on a schedule or by the user. The user can initiate a sync by opening the application which will most often, but not always, initiate a sync. For mail, the user can also initiate a sync using the sync icon.

CAUTION: Pre-3.0 firmware devices do not preserve existing Calendar and Contact data when configuring the device to sync Contacts and Calendar. This is a limitation of the device operating system.

To preserve existing Contact or Calendar data, upgrade the firmware to at least 3.0 or manually configure the device following the instructions to disable the sync of Contacts or Calendar data.

Currently there is no security setting to govern the behavior of the Apple 5s Fingerprint scanner.

Apple device users can enable or disable the Fingerprint scanner as desired. If enabled, the fingerprint scanner will allow a user to bypass entering a device pass code when unlocking the device. The device will still prompt for a passcode when it is powered on and at least once every 48 hours. This is by Apple design. No management of the Fingerprint scanner will be possible until Apple exposes the function to external management through the Apple Configuration Utility and/or Exchange ActiveSync protocol.

Mail

Table 2. Mail issues
Problem Details
Preventing the copying and forwarding of mail is not supported. Domino allows users to select Prevent copying as a Delivery Option before sending mail. However, the Apple iOS Mail client does not support this functionality. When mail tagged with Prevent copying is viewed from an Apple iOS Mail application, the body of the mail will be removed and replaced with the following text: This document is set to prohibit copying and duplicating. View this message using Traveler Companion. If Traveler Companion is not yet installed, download and install it from the app store.

iPhone supports only mail addresses with ASCII characters.

Sending a mail message to an address with non-ASCII characters results in a delivery failure.

The mail setting for Show x Recent Messages does not work with HCL Traveler mail.

This setting does not apply to HCL Traveler mail. Use the mail filter setting for Mail days to sync to control how much mail is kept in a folder on the device.

The mail folder list does not scroll horizontally.

This does not work on Apple devices. If you have a deeply nested mail folder structure, you may not be able to see the most deeply nested folders.

Mail shows ? in place of an embedded image.

In some cases, turning the device off and then back on fixes this problem.

The font used for the mail message body is too small.

If the mail message contains embedded images, tables, or other graphical elements that are too large for the small Apple screen, then the entire message is scaled down so that these graphical elements can be seen without scrolling. To view the rest of the message, zoom in and then scroll the document as needed.

In versions prior to iOS5, mail cannot be deleted or moved unless the device is connected with the server.

The Apple device Mail application does not allow many mail operations unless the sync can be completed immediately with the HCL Traveler server. For example, if the device is put into airplane mode and WiFi is disabled so that there is no connection possible with the server, then mail move and delete operations are grayed out and unavailable. At other times, you might notice that you have moved or deleted mail from your Inbox and later it reappears in your Inbox. This occurs when the device cannot contact the server and is a limitation of the Apple device.

Folder management does not work on the device.

On versions prior to iOS5, folder management (creating, renaming, moving, and deleting folders) is not available on the device. Starting with iOS5, folder management is available on the Apple device, but only if the device is connected to the server.

Opening a mail message immediately after it first syncs may prevent the screen from painting properly.

When a mail message first syncs to the Apple device, it contains only plain text and no attachments. Typically the device immediately fetches the rest of the mail from the server, including HTML text and possibly attachments if they are small. In some cases opening the mail on the device in the middle of this fetch operation prevents the screen from painting correctly. Moving back to the folder and then opening the mail later fixes the problem.

In versions prior to iOS 13/iPadOS 13, replying to mail does not include file attachments or embedded images.

Starting with iOS 13/iPadOS 13, you can configure to include attachments and embedded images when replying to a mail. This setting can be found on the device Settings > Mail (Composing) > Include Attachments with Replies.

For versions prior to iOS 13, if you want to include attachments or embedded images on a response, you must forward the mail and select Include Attachments. If you only reply to the mail, the attachments and embedded images are not included in the response.

Reply and Forward marks do not sync from server to device.

Apple devices do not support the syncing of Reply and Forward marks. These marks are considered local to the device or local to the server, and never synchronized. However, if you reply or forward a mail message on the device, the corresponding message in the server mail database will reflect the reply or forward mark.

Read/unread changes periodically do not sync from device to server with iOS versions prior to iOS5.

This is a limitation of the Apple device. If the change cannot be synced immediately, the device often forgets about the change and not synch it later.

Apple devices do not always download the entire mail message.

Some of your messages on your Apple device may download in their entirety. Others have attachment icons or a button to get the remainder of the message.

Apple devices sync mail in two phases. First, the device asks for 500b of the mail in plain text. It does this for every mail message. Second, the device examines the message and determines if it should auto-download it or not. If the device decides not to auto-download the entire message, you will receive a download button at the end of the message, and any attachments in the message will have icons to allow you to individually download them. If the device decides to auto-download the message, it will request the MIME version of the mail, which contains all of the rich text and all of the attachments. The criteria for this decision is internal to the Apple device and non-configurable.

Mail does not work with personal groups.

Because personal groups cannot be synchronized to Exchange Activesync devices, mail sent to a personal group (one not defined in the Domino® server's address book) is not delivered and is not able to be sent.

Moving mail to a folder on the device after it was replied to or forwarded may intermittently fail.

The Exchange ActiveSync specification has an Update command, but the Apple device does not honor it by updating the content (body) of the mail. Therefore, HCL Traveler tries to work around the issue by deleting the mail in one sync and then adding it back in the next sync. If the device tries to move the mail between the deletion and addition, the move will fail because the deletion has been processed. Apple's EAS implementation moves and syncs asynchronously, so if the operations are on the same item, problems may result.

If the move fails, try moving the mail again to avoid the timing gap between the deletion and addition.

Calendar

Table 3. Calendar issues
Problem Details
When a change is made to a meeting from a Notes or Web client that applies to "this and future" or "this and previous" instances, the invitee's Apple Calendar may display an extra ghost for the instance the chair selected. The extra ghost is removed once the notice is accepted or otherwise processed. This limitation only applies when the invitee has not processed the initial invitation for the meeting. The "this and future/previous" notice is synced to the Apple Mail app as a single-instance change because Apple does not support "this and future/previous" changes. The Traveler server ghosts the event to the Calendar app correctly, but the device does not reconcile the Calendar ghost with the Mail notice, so it ghosts the instance from the notice on the calendar as well, resulting in a duplicate. Removing the notice from the inbox or accepting the notice/event removes the duplicate ghost.
Room reservations are not updated when changes are made to calendar events from the device. Room reservations are not supported when syncing with Exchange ActiveSync 14.1 (or lower) or when the parameter NTS_AS_SEND_NOTICES_FROM_MAIL_SERVER is set to true in the notes.ini file. The room information is appended to the location field for display purposes only. Rescheduling or canceling a meeting from the device will not update the related room reservation in these scenarios.
Room reservations are not updated when all instances of a repeating calendar event are modified from devices syncing with Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync 16.0 or higher. When syncing with Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync (EAS) 16.0 or higher, room reservations will attempt to be rescheduled only for non-repeating events and changes to single instances of repeating events (requires Traveler 11.0.2 or higher). Changes to all instances of a repeating event will not modify or attempt to modify the associated room reservation.

Room reservations will automatically be removed when non-repeating or repeating events are canceled from a device syncing with EAS 16.0 or higher as long as Traveler is at version 11.0.2 or higher.

Rescheduling an event with a room reservation caused the room to decline the meeting. When rescheduling an event from a device syncing with Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync 16.0 or higher, room reservations will attempt to be rescheduled as well, if the scenario is supported (see above limitation). If the room is not available, a decline notice will be sent to the chair, but the meeting will still be rescheduled.
When Traveler is running on a Domino version lower than 11, meetings that are greater than 24 hours long do not display as expected in other V11 clients such as Notes, Verse Web, etc. Some protocols and event types use the Calendar & Scheduling APIs included in Domino 11 to correctly format events that are greater than 24 hours. Traveler must be installed on Domino 11.0 or later in order to fully support this feature with the iOS Calendar app.
Chair user does not have the option to save for "all events" when making changes to a repeating calendar entry from the iOS Calendar app. Making changes to "all events" is not supported for non-meeting type events such as appointments, all day events, or reminders. Additionally, repeating meetings with prior changes will only support the "all events" save option if all of the prior changes applied to all instances of the meeting. If a single instance or "this and previous/future" type change was made, only single instance changes will be allowed from the device and the "all events" option will not be displayed.
Limitations when changing Private setting on a repeating event. Changing the Private setting on a repeating event will toggle the setting for all instances of the event, even if the change was meant for just one instance. Additionally, if any other changes are made at the same time as that change, they will be lost. Only the Private setting change will be saved, other changes will need to be made separately.
Adding an attachment to a calendar event does not include the attachment in notices to invitees and is removed from the event when data is synced from the server.

Adding attachments to calendar entries is not currently supported. Please see this enhancement request: https://domino.ideas.aha.io/ideas/TRVLR-I-208 for updates.

Apple devices can only enable click to call phone numbers from the Notes® (specifically, the Description field) of a calendar entry.

If there are phone numbers in the subject or location field, then these are displayed, but the click to call feature is unavailable. It is only available for numbers in the Description field.

When multiple unprocessed invites are in the device inbox for the same meeting but for different instances, only the most recent invite will push to Apple calendar.

When a meeting chair invites an attendee to different instances of the same repeating meeting, one instance at a time, separate invitation notices are sent for each instance. An Apple device views these notices as multiple invites to a non-repeating meeting and only pushes the latest one to the calendar.

Invites are not sent to personal groups.

Because the synchronization of groups is not supported, calendar invites sent to a personal group (one not defined in the Domino® server's address book) are not delivered and are not able to be sent.

Meetings created from the device with the 'All-day' option are modified to start at 4am and end at 8pm.

An All-day event does not provide a start and end time selection. HCL Notes® does not support this type of All-day event as a meeting. Creating a meeting from the device with the 'All-day' option and one or more invitees results in HCL Traveler creating a meeting from 4am to 8pm in the user's server mail database.

Changing the 'All-day' option setting for an existing event is not supported.

Once an event has been created, HCL Traveler does not allow its All-day option to be modified. Modifying the 'All-day' value from the device results in HCL Traveler rejecting the change and restoring the event to its prior state on the device.

Click to dial does not work, if the stored number includes the letter p as the pause symbol.

When entering a dial-in number, use a comma to indicate a pause instead of the letter p. Apple devices will not dial a number when the letter p is used to indicate a pause. For example, do not use 123-456-7890p12345#. Instead, use 123-456-7890,12345#.

HCL Traveler does not support the sub-calendar feature on Apple devices.

The Apple device calendar allows you create a sub-calendar to the primary calendar of an account. HCL Traveler does not support this. Any data added to a sub-calendar under an HCL Traveler account calendar will not sync and will be lost.

Some meeting notices have an attachment called meeting.ics that is 0 bytes and cannot be downloaded.

This attachment is a placeholder for the calendar data normally displayed by the iOS device. When the event is not on the calendar, or has been removed (due to being canceled, for instance), the calendar data cannot be shown.

iOS 8 only: When the chair of a meeting cancels all instances of it, the cancel notice is not ghosted to the device, even though it is unprocessed.

This bug was fixed in iOS 9. The cancel notice can still be processed on an iOS 8 device from the Mail inbox, by selecting Delete event.

When a remove attendee notice is received and synced to iOS Mail/Calendar apps, it is immediately processed by the server and, in the case of a repeating meeting, may cause other instances to be tentatively accepted.

This is by design. iOS Mail/Calendar apps do not have a way to process this type of notice from the device. As a result, HCL Traveler server will automatically process it when the notice is synced to the device. If the user has not taken action on the original invitation yet, HCL Traveler would tentatively accept it in order to process the remove notice. The user can still use the iOS Calendar app to accept or decline instances of the meeting, as needed.

When one or more instances of a repeating meeting are canceled and the invitee has not taken action on the meeting invitation, the cancel notice may not ghost to the calendar.

The iOS device is ghosting the invitation to the calendar and is not able to ghost the cancel notice over it unless an action is taken on the invitation.

After declining an instance of a repeating meeting, the other instances may be marked tentative.

Apple Bug 25114211 has been opened for this issue. The Apple device sends both the decline and tentative actions to the server, even though the user did not choose tentative for any instances.

Availability is only shown for some invitees. Full availability may be displayed only for the first 20 invitees on a meeting. Full availability may only be displayed for the first 20 invitees on a meeting. This can be configured with NTS_FREE_BUSY_MAX_RECIPIENTS.
Suggested dates are too far in the future. iOS devices always list the suggested dates starting from the current date. If a suggested date is far into the future, the cause may be that the limit was reached when the device requested more than the maximum date range (default is 4380 hours - 6 months) configured by NTS_FREE_BUSY_MAX_RANGE_HOURS. Note that if the range requests data more than a year from the current date, the request will fail regardless of the max range configured.

Reminders

Table 4. Reminders issues
Problem Details

To Do support

HCL Notes® To Do's are supported, but not through the Reminders app. To Do's are only supported using the HCL Traveler To Do's app, available from the Apple app store.

Cannot assign To Do's from a mobile device.

To assign To Do's to another user, use the HCL Notes Client or Notes Web Mail (iNotes). The ability to assign To Do's will be reviewed for inclusion in a future release.

Notebook

Table 5. Notebook
Problem Details

Notebook or Journal documents are not synced to the Apple device.

HCL Traveler does not currently support syncing of Notebook or Journal documents to the Apple device.

Name Lookup

Table 6. Name Lookup
Problem Details

Multiple accounts may cause delays in receiving results.

All of the accounts may be queried, and the device may wait to display any results until all are received. If you have any inactive accounts or accounts where the server can no longer be reached, you may want to remove them.