Fix “Lotus Notes Archive not Authorized to Perform Operation” Error

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Written By Andrew Jackson
Anuraag Singh
Approved By Anuraag Singh
Published On August 11th, 2022
Reading Time 4 Minutes Reading

Query 1: “Our organization uses Lotus Notes for some years now. Recently, some of our new employees are encountering an error message every time they try to access certain mailbox folders. The message says, “Lotus Notes 9.0 archive you are not authorized to perform that operation.” We have tried many different methods but still, have not been able to get rid of this error. Kindly suggest any remedial technique that can stop this error message from appearing for good.”

Query 2: “For the last few days, I keep seeing Lotus Notes Archive not Authorized to Perform Operation error message in my IBM Lotus Emails. I do not know what is responsible for this error. I have very little experience when it comes to Lotus Notes as I have been using this for six months. If any forum member knows its causes or its solution, please let me know.”

Many Lotus Notes users like these two above face this error message “Lotus Notes error you are not authorized to perform that operation archive” This error prohibits the users from accessing certain Lotus NSF files. Since people frequently ask for a solution to this error in forums, this post is going to address this issue. For the readers, we will discuss this IBM Lotus Notes error in detail along with its causes and solutions.

Lotus Notes Archive not Authorized to Perform Operation

What is Lotus Notes Archive not Authorized to Perform Operation Error

This is a commonplace error faced by IBM Lotus users. As we all know, IBM Lotus Notes save all its data in NSF file format. All mailbox items of Lotus Notes including emails, contacts, calendars, etc are saved in the NSF file. Lotus Notes contains an inbuilt feature named Access Control List (ACL) where all permissions of a given object are listed. Only admins possess the authority to assign access rights to the local Lotus Notes users. So, users can access certain files once the admin gives them permission to do so. When an IBM Lotus email user faces this error, it means that they are not authorized by the admin to access these files. To remove this error, users need to have access to permission from the admin account.

You are not Authorized to Perform that Operation Error

Causes of You are not Authorized to Perform that Operation Error

The main cause of this error “Lotus Notes Archive not Authorized to Perform Operation” is the absence of user authorization. In this segment, we will discuss various aspects of this cause i.e., lack of permission.

1. That particular user account does not exist in the Domino Directory.

2. The user account may have been shifted to some other Domino server.

3. This error can also be caused by admin accounts not having proper permission to open the mail file. It is possible that the admin account may have access to the mailbox but not to all mailbox items due to permission settings issue.

Solutions to Not Authorized to Perform Operation Lotus Notes Error

Now that we know the causes, let’s learn the solutions to these causes one by one.

1. To fix the user does not exist problem, make sure that the account does exist in the directory of Domino.

2. Perform these steps if you find that the user-facing error is situated in a Domino server different from admin account:

  • Generate a new admin account on the same Domino where the user account is situated.
  • Grant Manager access to the mail files to the new admin account by explicitly enabling all permissions.
  • Now, migrate using the new admin account of IBM Lotus Notes.

3. Confirm that the correct permissions are granted to the admin account, follow these steps:

  • Find out and confirm if the admin account is capable of opening mail file.
  • Check if the error occurs while attempting to directly open mail file directory. In that case, explicitly grant the admin account the Manager level access to the mail file. Also, enable all permissions to fix Lotus Notes error you are not authorized to perform that operation archive.

Conclusion

It is clear that the main cause of Lotus Notes archive not authorized to perform operation error is lack of access permission. The only way to fix this error is to acquire access right to the file. Otherwise, users can also try removing local security in order to access NSF database files. By implementing the above methods, Lotus Notes users can resolve “You are not authorized to perform that operation” error permanently. Users are advised to follow the instructions given here to resolve this error.

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By Andrew Jackson

I am SQL DBA and SQL Server blogger too. I like to share about SQL Server and the problems related to it as well as their solution and also I do handle database related user queries, server or database maintenance, database management, etc. I love to share my knowledge with SQL Geeks.