Sametime business card data cache

The Sametime client has a cache of the information it has fetched from the business card (aka blackbox) system on a per user basis. This is both the textual data and the image data. In case your Sametime client displays stale data you can do one of two things:

  1. Right-click the contact and select “Refresh Person Info”. This will make Sametime refetch the data from the Sametime server.
  2. Clear the cache from disk.

In some cases option 1 wont work although it’s far far the easiest. I have seen this when changing the person image format (e.g. from jpg til gif). In this case you may need to clear the cache from disk.

So where is this cache? Well if you open the “workspace.metadata.pluginscom.ibm.collaboration.realtime.people.implPersonCache” directory beneath your Notes data directory you’ll see a directory per Sametime community you’re connected to. In each of these directories you’ll find

  • an .index file containing a list of the known users
  • an XML file per user with person info
  • a picture, if any, of the user

If you want to purge the cache for a community you can close the Notes client, clear the contents of the .index file (you may be able to delete the file altogether but I haven’t tried) and delete the xml and image files. When you restart Notes and hover over a Sametime contact the client will refetch the business card data.

Easy.

9 thoughts on “Sametime business card data cache”

  1. …. or 3.

    By default, the Sametime Connect client cache is refreshed every 7 days. You can manage the client cache refresh interval through the following preference parameter:

    com.ibm.collaboration.realtime.people/lookupExpirationDays

    If set to zero (‘0’), the client refreshes data at every restart.

    If set to any other number, the client refreshes the data upon an interval of that number of days.

    Taken from this TN

    Title:    Business Card information not updated until refreshed

    Doc #:    1377088

    URL:    http://www.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?rs=899&uid=swg21377088

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  2. Nice post!

    Here is some additional information on this also:

    So, the cache reference is ,if a change to the photo was made, the old one stays for 7 days unless changed by custom file. If a user has never had your photo before then it is almost immediate,however once I have seen your photo it is cached locally, and the client by default will not attempt to download a new photo for 7 days.

    The default cache period can be changed by editing the plugin_customization.ini (in the directory where Sametime is installed) and add ‘com.ibm.collaboration.realtime.imhub/lookupExpirationDays=x’ where x= the number of days to cache the photo. You can set it to 0 to lookup the photo every time, but that could have an impact on performance.

    HTH,

    Tim E. Brown

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  4. Hi , I’m having the same problem.But I’m using Active Directory to store ( jpegPhoto ) user picture and use Hyena to upload picture into AD . I use AD authentication for Sametime client. Any advice ?

     Thanks.

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  5. Hi,

    I’m using Active Directory to authenticate Sametime users ( some use integrated client and other use standalone client ). I use Hyena to upload jpegPhoto . I can view with Hyena or Softerra LDAP Browser. But we can’t see it from either integrated client or standalone client.

    I’ve also checked from the Administration page ( Configuration -> Business Card setup ) , it seems configured correctly , Photo = jpegPhoto .

    Any help ??

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  6. Interesting. That didn’t solve my problem. What is worse is that if you take a sampling of five users, three out of the five will have completely different information show up in the business card for a specified user. Clearing the cache as shown does not help, doing an ldapsearch shows the correct information is being published and information people are seeing is not even even showing in LDAP. Not sure where it is coming from, where it is being cached and how to resolve the problem.

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  7. I am using SameTime 9 embedded in Notes.  My picutre is not refreshing.  I checked the cache and it looks like my new picture is cached but for some reason the one that is used when I hover over my name is the old picture.  I asked someone else to check their system and they said that my old picture is being used.  Also, the "refresh person info" option no longer seems to be available in LN/ST 9.

    Any help?

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  8. Thanks for posting. I have a question I hope you can help me with. I’m trying to add a picture to my Sametime profile, and I can’t find any easy to understand instructions on this. I’ve gone several pages deep in Google with no luck. Do I have to update my business card? If so, how do I do that? Thanks!

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  9.  The "refresh person info" option still very much exists in ST 9.

    Select the contact name in the ST contacts list whose info u wish to refresh.

    Then, click the settings icon on Top Right in ST (beside the Search edit field). In the menu that is shown, select Manage Contacts, then Refresh Person Info in the popup submenu that appears when u select Manage Contacts.

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