dcc003@muvms1.bitnet (04/14/89)
DBASE IV BUG? Our department has recently purchased DBASE IV, over the past semester we have discovered a couple of possible bugs. One, which we handle with a batch file is as follows; Upon doing anything in DBASE IV the program creates temporary files. Unfortuneatly, it doesn't get rid of them when it is finished. QUESTION: Is this a fault in the program, or the setup. As of yet A/T hasn't answered our query. The other bug, is more of a nusiance, as of yet I have found no way around it, other than to stick with its limitations. Here it comes; When creating labels, the program will not work, unless there is text on both the top, and bottom of the lable. QUESTION: This problem was discovered recently, thus A/T hasn't been consulted, Is this problem universal, or just a bug with my copy of the software. Thanks is advance, Ken
awd@dbase.UUCP (Alastair Dallas) (04/15/89)
I'm sorry, but I'm not up to speed on labels, so I can't suggest a solution for that problem. As for temporary files, I have seen this problem personally but I have been unable to reproduce it. I often have $ed and $vm files left on my disk, but, then, during development dBASE crashes occasionally and that will certainly leave temp files around. I would appreciate more detail as to your setup and what series of steps leaves a temp file on the disk. /alastair/
emuleomo@surfers.rutgers.edu (Emuleomo) (04/17/89)
> Our dept just bought dBase IV and we have encountered some possible bugs... > Dear dBase user, I will advise you in all sincerity to SWITCH to Foxbase+ v2.1. It will do ANYTHING you need to do approx. 3 times faster than dBase IV and it contains no known bugs.!!!! Futhermore, you may not even need to change your code if you have'nt been using the 'new' Ashton Tate commands. In case you think all this talk about Foxbase+ is just talk, try reading the April (or is it March) issue of Database Forum where George Goley Jr compares the dBase compatible products and you will see why everybody on comp.databases sings the praises of FOX! --Emuleomo O.O. *** Premature use of dBase IV is the root of all evil. ***
awd@dbase.UUCP (Alastair Dallas) (04/20/89)
In article <Apr.17.10.39.48.1989.4291@surfers.rutgers.edu>, emuleomo@surfers.rutgers.edu (Emuleomo) writes: > I will advise you in all sincerity to SWITCH to Foxbase+ v2.1. > It will do ANYTHING you need to do approx. 3 times faster than dBase IV > and it contains no known bugs.!!!! Futhermore, you may not even need to > change your code if you have'nt been using the 'new' Ashton Tate commands. > > In case you think all this talk about Foxbase+ is just talk, try reading > the April (or is it March) issue of Database Forum where George Goley Jr > --Emuleomo O.O. > *** Premature use of dBase IV is the root of all evil. *** dBASE IV is a tremendous improvement over the dBASE III PLUS language, and Foxbase is merely a clone of III+. There are dozens of new commands and functions, a sophisticated report writer, and so forth. There are reasons for the 'new' Ashton Tate commands and there are a lot of useful things that Foxbase+ can't do. (Of course, paper and pencil can be used to _simulate_ dBASE IV, but, speaking realistically...) George Goley Jr, a knowledgable writer who may be completely unbiased, is also the author of the only book about Foxbase+, an ad for which ships with each copy of the software. /alastair/
bruce@mdi386.UUCP (Bruce A. McIntyre) (04/23/89)
In article <54@dbase.UUCP>, awd@dbase.UUCP (Alastair Dallas) writes: > In article <Apr.17.10.39.48.1989.4291@surfers.rutgers.edu>, emuleomo@surfers.rutgers.edu (Emuleomo) writes: > > I will advise you in all sincerity to SWITCH to Foxbase+ v2.1. > > It will do ANYTHING you need to do approx. 3 times faster than dBase IV > > and it contains no known bugs.!!!! Futhermore, you may not even need to > > change your code if you have'nt been using the 'new' Ashton Tate commands. > > > > In case you think all this talk about Foxbase+ is just talk, try reading > > the April (or is it March) issue of Database Forum where George Goley Jr > > --Emuleomo O.O. > dBASE IV is a tremendous improvement over the dBASE III PLUS language, and > Foxbase is merely a clone of III+. There are dozens of new commands and > functions, a sophisticated report writer, and so forth. There are reasons > for the 'new' Ashton Tate commands and there are a lot of useful things > that Foxbase+ can't do. (Of course, paper and pencil can be used to > _simulate_ dBASE IV, but, speaking realistically...) The current dBASE4 is the logical extension of what happens when marketing controls the company, and not anyone else is considered. dBASE4 is a good product IF: 1. dbase is intended to be a bad clone of Paradox. 2. you never intend to actually DO anything with it. 3. You don't have to make a living by making any REAL APPLICATIONS with it. 4. You never saw dBASEIII or any of the clones. 5. You will only work on single user applications on PC-DOS 6. You are a salesman for ashton-tate, and are paid by commission for the sales of products, but not penalized for returns. dBASE was invented, and first advertised, NOT as a database for users, but as an Application Development Language for database applications. If you want a database for users, you are still better off with Paradox, or even Q&A. If you want to use a powerfull language to build transportable applications, you can use Foxbase, Clipper, and others. If you are serious about building big applications, you will move to Progress, Informix, etc. But if you work for a big corporation, you will get dBASEIV, and put it on the shelf and continue to use dBASEIII or Clipper or Foxbase. I know these are rambling thoughts, but I get irrational every time I hear that dBASE IV is such a great improved product. Ashton-Tate has abandoned those people, the developers, that made their product so popular, since they "don't need those people any more". Back when they introduced dBASEIII, I had a discussion with George Tate at the New York introduction, and we talked about how dBASE was developed and was running on Vaxen with C under UNIX. But that there would never be enough of a market there to release it as such. George, however, was smart enough I beleive, that in today's market he would have changed his mind. (He also, I believe, would have never called that abortion they shipped for the MAC, a version of dBASE). bruce -- ========================================================================= Bruce A. McIntyre, McIntyre Designs, Inc. VOICE(215)322-1895 143 Bridgetown Pike, Langhorne, Pa. 19047 DATA (215)357-2915 {wells|lgnp1|prapc2}!mdi386!bruce bruce@wells tbit+ Unix, Xenix, Netware and PC-DOS Applications development. Specializing in Database Applications since 1980.
timk@egvideo.UUCP (Tim Kuehn) (04/24/89)
In article <54@dbase.UUCP> awd@dbase.UUCP (Alastair Dallas) writes: >In article <Apr.17.10.39.48.1989.4291@surfers.rutgers.edu>, emuleomo@surfers.rutgers.edu (Emuleomo) writes: >> I will advise you in all sincerity to SWITCH to Foxbase+ v2.1. >> It will do ANYTHING you need to do approx. 3 times faster than dBase IV >> and it contains no known bugs.!!!! Futhermore, you may not even need to >> change your code if you have'nt been using the 'new' Ashton Tate commands. >> >> In case you think all this talk about Foxbase+ is just talk, try reading >> the April (or is it March) issue of Database Forum where George Goley Jr >> --Emuleomo O.O. >> *** Premature use of dBase IV is the root of all evil. *** > >dBASE IV is a tremendous improvement over the dBASE III PLUS language, and >Foxbase is merely a clone of III+. And Superman is a clone of Pee-Wee herman.. :-) Seriously though - F-base is a clone only in that it can run dbase/III + code unmodified. The speed it does it with and the programming extensions that it has and the fact that IT WORKED makes it much more than "just" a clone in my opinion. (Kinda like calling a Porsche a clone of an Escort....) Meantime, where was A-T with THEIR upgrades, not to mention just dealing with the myriad of bugs in the product you were already shipping?) > There are dozens of new commands and >functions, a sophisticated report writer, and so forth. Yep - A-T saw what was going on with F/+ and said "Gee - maybe we'd better put these things in there too!" >There are reasons >for the 'new' Ashton Tate commands and there are a lot of useful things >that Foxbase+ can't do. (Of course, paper and pencil can be used to >_simulate_ dBASE IV, but, speaking realistically...) > > >/alastair/ +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ |Timothy D. Kuehn timk@egvideo | |TDK Consulting Services !watmath!egvideo!timk | |871 Victoria St. North, Suite 217A | |Kitchener, Ontario, Canada N2B 3S4 (519)-741-3623 | +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ I'm not associated with F/+ or A-T, I've just had occasion to be working with both F/+ 2.1 and dbase III Plus on occasion in my work....
alexis@ccnysci.UUCP (Alexis Rosen) (04/25/89)
In article <54@dbase.UUCP> awd@dbase.UUCP (Alastair Dallas) writes: >dBASE IV is a tremendous improvement over the dBASE III PLUS language, and >Foxbase is merely a clone of III+. There are dozens of new commands and >functions, a sophisticated report writer, and so forth. There are reasons >for the 'new' Ashton Tate commands and there are a lot of useful things >that Foxbase+ can't do. (Of course, paper and pencil can be used to >_simulate_ dBASE IV, but, speaking realistically...) Yes, dBase IV is a tremendous improvement over dBase III+. Saying that FoxBase+ is only a clone of dBase III+ shows massive ignorance, however. Most of the dBase IV improvements have existed in FoxBase for quite a while (language improvements, that is). There are a few things that don't exist in Fox, and there are many things that Fox does that dBase iV still doesn't do. But I am not going to get into a features war- just listing the features of either product would take days. FoxPro is due about July 1 (slipped a little from the June 1 I was expecting). It will support all of the language enhancements in dBase IV (I know because I've used it. They're there). It will also have a user interface that will make you drool- They've done a good simulation of their Mac interface on character-based PCs (I didn't think a good emulation was possible, but they've done it). Just to give you an example, you can have multiple edit windows on one or many files, all at the same time, which can stay up while you execute code or work in the command window (which is the old dot prompt). The editor is excellent, BTW. >George Goley Jr, a knowledgable writer who may be completely unbiased, is >also the author of the only book about Foxbase+, an ad for which ships with >each copy of the software. I don't know him, but he's written books on other dBase variants and on dBase III+ as well, I think. I doubt that he's biased in any serious way. Regardless, read his article and decide for yourself whether he presents facts or opinion. --- Alexis Rosen alexis@ccnysci.{uucp,bitnet} alexis@rascal.ics.utexas.edu (last resort)
emuleomo@yes.rutgers.edu (Emuleomo) (04/25/89)
Alastair, We know you work for A-T, but come on now. However, I have a short quiz for you. If you had, a budget of $500 and you had to buy a) Dbase II b) Dbase III+ c) Dbase IV d) Foxbase+ v 2.1 e) Clipper (Autumn or is it Summer 1989 or whatever) f) Quick Silver g) DBXL ETC....ETC.... h) None of the above. (Do it by pencil and paper) AND YOU DID NOT WORK FOR A-T AND YOUR JOB WAS ON THE LINE W H A T W O U L D Y O U B U Y ??????? --Emuleomo. O.O. *** I got my job because I knew DbaseIII, BUT I got PROMOTED because I bought *** Foxbase+.(and produced STUNNINGLY FAST applications)
awd@dbase.UUCP (Alastair Dallas) (04/25/89)
In article <45@mdi386.UUCP>, bruce@mdi386.UUCP (Bruce A. McIntyre) writes: > In article <54@dbase.UUCP>, awd@dbase.UUCP (Alastair Dallas) writes: <misc Ashton-Tate-bashing and impassioned defense omitted> > dBASE was invented, and first advertised, NOT as a database for users, but > as an Application Development Language for database applications. Wrong. dBASE was invented to be used interactively, not as a programming language. It was based on in-house JPL software which was itself based on TymShare software for data retrieval called Retrieve. > I know these are rambling thoughts, but I get irrational every time I hear > that dBASE IV is such a great improved product. Ashton-Tate has abandoned > those people, the developers, that made their product so popular, since > they "don't need those people any more". I'm sorry you get irrational. Like it or not, dBASE IV offers a laundry list of significant improvements over dBASE III PLUS. Read the reviews--even when we get hosed (as multi-user dBASE IV was in InfoWorld recently), they all mention the increased power and flexibility. Several of the people I work with (and I) were among the programmers who created dBASE III--our commitment to our developers is as strong as it ever was. Developers made dBASE, and many of the improvements in IV (like the SCAN command, the LOOKUP() function, the compiler) are primarily for working applications developers. > Back when they introduced dBASEIII, > I had a discussion with George Tate at the New York introduction, and we > talked about how dBASE was developed and was running on Vaxen with C under > UNIX. But that there would never be enough of a market there to release it > as such. George, however, was smart enough I beleive, that in today's market > he would have changed his mind. There are still problems (distribution, support) with making dBASE available on minicomputers. We've graduated from a Vax to a Pyramid with some Sun workstations, but a Unix version is still in the future. If you have a well thought-out business plan for making as much money in that market as we do in the PC market, come on down and make some big bucks in Torrance. > (He also, I believe, would have never called > that abortion they shipped for the MAC, a version of dBASE). > bruce I think we can all agree here. dBASE Mac is not an abortion; it's an excellent product, actually, but it's not dBASE. The people responsible for that naming decision (with the exception of Ed Esber) have all moved on to greener pastures. /alastair/
awd@dbase.UUCP (Alastair Dallas) (04/26/89)
In article <1719@ccnysci.UUCP>, alexis@ccnysci.UUCP (Alexis Rosen) writes: > In article <54@dbase.UUCP> awd@dbase.UUCP (Alastair Dallas) writes: > >dBASE IV is a tremendous improvement over the dBASE III PLUS language, and > >Foxbase is merely a clone of III+. There are dozens of new commands and... > > Yes, dBase IV is a tremendous improvement over dBase III+. Saying that > FoxBase+ is only a clone of dBase III+ shows massive ignorance, however. > Most of the dBase IV improvements have existed in FoxBase for quite a while > (language improvements, that is). There are a few things that don't exist > in Fox, and there are many things that Fox does that dBase iV still doesn't > do. But I am not going to get into a features war- just listing the features > of either product would take days. > --- > Alexis Rosen I don't want to waste the net's time if this discussion isn't interesting to other people. Obviously, I'm one of the authors of dBASE IV--I think it's great; not only that, but I have a financial interest in it (my job), too. Perhaps I shouldn't have said "merely" a clone, but FoxBase+ offers very few improvements to III+--arrays, UDFs and multi-child relations come to mind. dBASE IV includes those (in a better implementation, in my opinion). But, there are a lot of things in IV which are not found in FoxBase+. For example: CALCULATE--one-pass financial and statistical functions all of SQL SCAN..ENDSCAN--single-pass database processing COPY TO ARRAY/APPEND FROM ARRAY--better than SCATTER/GATHER, in my opinion (COPY/APPEND work on data sets) printer drivers, sophisticated printer control keyboard macros scrollable, movable, overlapping, user-defined windows transaction processing (start/commit/rollback) LOOKUP() function for handling lookup tables interactive debugger ...and more... I don't mean to say that FoxBase+ is not better and much faster than dBASE III PLUS--it is an excellent clone with a few key improvements. But it's not fair to compare FoxBase+ with dBASE IV--not fair to FoxBase. Perhaps I'm demonstrating "massive ignorance" again, but what feature does FoxBase+ offer that is not found in dBASE IV? I think I'm treading very close to the net rules about commercialization. I'm on this newsgroup to learn things and to help with dBASE problems. If I've stepped out of line, I hope you'll tell me. People who like FoxBase+ _really_ like FoxBase+, to the point where it's not clear if they've actually looked at dBASE IV. /alastair/ Disclaimer: These are my opinions, no matter how much they may seem to be the corporate line. Suits (management and lawyers) still don't read the net, luckily.
awd@dbase.UUCP (Alastair Dallas) (04/27/89)
In article <Apr.25.11.04.38.1989.3071@yes.rutgers.edu>, emuleomo@yes.rutgers.edu (Emuleomo) writes: > > Alastair, > We know you work for A-T, but come on now. > However, I have a short quiz for you. > If you had, a budget of $500 and you had to buy > <dBASE-type products list omitted> > AND YOU DID NOT WORK FOR A-T AND YOUR JOB WAS ON THE LINE > > W H A T W O U L D Y O U B U Y ??????? > > --Emuleomo. O.O. I don't want to have to answer this, but fair is fair. I'd probably buy Clipper. I don't need many of the user-friendly features of dBASE IV (because I'm a C programmer, after all). Clipper works like a C compiler, producing linkable files. I like that, but it's not for the average user. Clipper has a lot of fine extensions to the dBASE language, as well--as a systems programmer, I like things like FOPEN(), FREAD(), and so forth. I'm not as infatuated with FoxBase+ as you and others seem to be. I don't agree with their design decisions in the few cases where they deviated from dBASE III PLUS. SCATTER/GATHER, parentheses for functions as well as arrays. Trivial things, but that's what I do for a living. But, "What would you buy?" is a good question. It puts me on the spot. I think it also highlights why people with enough technical savvy to use a net like this tend to disklike dBASE IV. Some of dBASE IV's best features are like automatic transmission--"real" drivers don't use it. /alastair/ Disclaimer: The usual. I'm speaking for me only.
steve@violet.berkeley.edu (Steve Goldfield) (04/28/89)
In article <62@dbase.UUCP> awd@dbase.UUCP (Alastair Dallas) writes:
#>I don't want to waste the net's time if this discussion isn't interesting to
#>other people. Obviously, I'm one of the authors of dBASE IV--I think it's
#>great; not only that, but I have a financial interest in it (my job), too.
#>
#>Perhaps I shouldn't have said "merely" a clone, but FoxBase+ offers very
#>few improvements to III+--arrays, UDFs and multi-child relations
#>come to mind. dBASE IV includes those (in a better implementation, in my
As one who's written dozens of laborious stupid pseudo-arrays in
dBASE II and dBASEIII+ (McMax) using macros and fighting the 64
variable limit in dBASE II, I would hardly minimize the
importance of adding arrays. Had I been offered a rival program,
identical in all respects to dBASE but with arrays, I'd gladly
have paid considerably more to get it (and saved a lot of programming
time). I have no comment on dBASE IV since it isn't available to
me on the Macintosh anyway. But my only reason for getting into
dBASE in the first place was that it was compatible with the word
processor I used in 1983 and the other database program I looked
at (which looked much better than dBASE) was not [hint: I hate
WordStar even more than I hate dBASE, so it wasn't WS that was
incompatible with the other program]. From the beginning, dBASE
has been buggy and poor on features. I think most of us continue
to use it only because we know it and because it is the most
widely used program.
Steve Goldfieldeichi@forty2.UUCP (Stefan Eichenberger) (05/03/89)
In article <2178@muvms1.bitnet> dcc003@muvms1.bitnet writes: > ... Of course you all >don't mind using the "RE:DBASE IV BUG(S)" subject to push your products. It >seemed to me that very few, if any, who responed to my problem (without useful >advice i might add..) appears to even have used it. OK., I just had a pretty hard weekend to get a application running for which the unfortunate descision was made to use dBase IV rather than Clipper, which not only seems to have far fewer BUGS but also many extensions which dBase IV doesn't offer. Bugs : - I had a couple of system crashes. - Sometimes, after compiling (and running) a errorenous program and returning to the DOS prompt, another attempt to compile resulted in a message of the sort 'Illegal invocation of compiler'. - similar smaller problems, which disappeared after restarting dBase IV or rebooting the machine. - The following code produced errors: Procedure EditPanel .... Do GetInput On Key Label F2 Do HelpWdw Read On Key Label F2 return Procedure GetInput @ ..,.. Get m->Field1 Valid UDF1 (m->Field1) @ ..,.. Get m->Field2 Valid UDF2 (m->Field2) .... return At one of the GETs, a error box appeard telling me, that a variable was not found. Outcommenting the respective VALID condition made the error disappear, which was obviously not the solution I wanted. After backtracking the problem for a few hours, I found, that moving the ON KEY and READ statements from the procedure EditPanel to GetInput solved it. - Insufficient memory (especially on in a network environment) is certainly not a bug in it's true sence, but it's quite annoing. The above procedure GetInput got about 20 fields, almost each with a 20-50 line long user defined function for validation. After adding one additional field (a date field), I got the insufficient memory message. I reconfigered the PC and got another 60 kBytes. The message was still there until I removed the new field again. I could also another field instead to get around the memory shortage. What you think of a program that uses 60 kBytes just to get a date???????? - If you are in the debugger, the program crashes in a ACTIVE WINDOW, which is not the full screen, you enter the editor, to edit the file and then quit the editor as well as the debugger, your screen looks pretty shitty... - BUILD, which should be something like a fullscreen make, disregards the hardware configuration and flickers on my AT&T 6300 screen, which is compatible to the old CGA. Doesn't matter, since - BUILD crashed on a program, which worked fine in the interactive environment, saying that the command '^%$&' (or something similar) was not recognised on line 27 (where in fact there was a CLEAR ALL command) >Once again, I state my problems. 1) Dbase does not erase its temporary files >after use. I currently get around this problem with a batch file. Won't A-T tell you, that you shouldn't bother? The files have length 0, so they should occupy no disk space apart from the directory entry (some 20-30 Bytes, as you are in a subdirectory anyway, which looks as a file to the parent dir.) And you wouldn't want to look at this directory anyway...? Real dBase users never go to such a low level as DOS...? I have no experience, with the 'dBase IV Control Center' (great name anyway!), but if you plan to program, forget it. I don't know FOX, but certainly Clipper is a much better programming environment. BTW, once you have finished development and deliver your program together with the Runtime Environment (which alone fills about 500k on your hard disk), how do you get rid of this silly dBase opening screen, advertising how great dBase IV is? Or, if you don't get rid of it, on the field in the top left corner, they say This software is licenced to ========================= =================== ============ =================== How do you fill in the '============' with your customers name? (I don't mean the opening panel of interactive dBase, which is licenced to you from A-T, I mean the runtime environment opening panel) Disclaimer: I don't have opinions, these were just my fingers who typed this. Whom's fingers are these...? -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- UUCP: ...mcvax!cernvax!forty2!eichi Stefan Eichenberger BITNET: K807817@CZHRZU1A ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
eichi@forty2.UUCP (Stefan Eichenberger) (05/03/89)
One more bug (?), I forgot in my previous posting: From Clipper, I'm used to control screen colors by something like ColorSet1 = 'GR+/G....' ColorSet2 = '.........' Set Color to &ColorSet1 ... Set Color to &ColorSet2 This is perfectly leagal in Clipper and works in dBase IV procedures too, although the manual tells you nothing about it. If you believe the manual, Set Color to does not expect a character expression. OK., it works in procedures, but where is the bug? Try it in functions, and you learn, that macro substitution is not supported in functions... The manual contains a list of commands that are illegal in functions, macros are, of course, not listed there. Is it a bug, or is the information simply too good hidden in the manual? I'd also have some questions on how to do some things from within programs, which are easy in Clipper, but can't be done in dBase IV at all (i.g., terminating READs by function keys and react on them accordingly), but I think it's too much efford typing them concerning a package, I'll hopefully never use again. -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- UUCP: ...mcvax!cernvax!forty2!eichi Stefan Eichenberger BITNET: K807817@CZHRZU1A ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
danielg@earl.med.unc.edu (Daniel Gene Sinclair) (05/06/89)
In article <62@dbase.UUCP> awd@dbase.UUCP (Alastair Dallas) writes: >In article <1719@ccnysci.UUCP>, alexis@ccnysci.UUCP (Alexis Rosen) writes: > >I think I'm treading very close to the net rules about commercialization. >I'm on this newsgroup to learn things and to help with dBASE problems. If >I've stepped out of line, I hope you'll tell me. People who like FoxBase+ >_really_ like FoxBase+, to the point where it's not clear if they've >actually looked at dBASE IV. > >/alastair/ > >Disclaimer: These are my opinions, no matter how much they may seem to be >the corporate line. Suits (management and lawyers) still don't read the >net, luckily. Alastair, I think that you're doing a great job on the net - where are the reps from your competitors? Not around here, that I have seen. I am a self-taught (mostly) dbase III+ user, and a novice at that, so I am glad to have someone on board who knows what they're talking about (*despite* an obvious and expected bias towards your A-T product ;-). You have a good attitude, keep it up. -- Disclaimer: My opinion means | 'If you only knew how much I was holding nothing, but His means | back, you would commend me' everything. | - Charles Spurgeon, 19th century danielg@uncmed.med.unc.edu | evangelist (on humor in preaching)
willson@seas.gwu.edu (Stephen Willson) (07/25/90)
I just started using dBase IV about four weeks ago. Today I encountered an interesting problem. I am working with a database that has approxiametly 1,000 records. One of my fields contains a single character. Either "S" or "M". From the menu system I attempted to display all of the records which contained an "M" for that field. Instead I had a list of all of the records (1,068) and each one had an "M" in that field. It should show only those records which contain "M"'s in that field. If anyone has heard of this bug I would like to know. I would also like to know if there is any way to fix it.