ts@author.ecn.purdue.edu (Thomas Ruschak) (06/22/91)
We just got FileMaker Pro a month or so ago, and we're having real
problems with it. The application itself is fine, it has all the features
we need, etc. Unfortunately, our database files continually get corrupted!
We have the following setup:
Mac II fx (8Mb), Apple 24bit Color, Mac II ci (4Mb), Apple
Page Monitor, Mac II si (5Mb), Apple 8bit color
All the machines are hooked up to an Appletalk network. We keep a
lot of our files on a SparcStation II, using AUFS (apple-unix file system)
We use System 6.something and Multifinder. (I can get the exact versions
if needed)
Anyway, FileMaker Pro writes to the file from time to time as you
work, and says that you don't need to save, but you do need to make sure
that you either close the file explicitly, or quit the app. Fine, we do
that. Unfortunately, a lot of the time when we work with the file, everything
seems to go fine, but then when we try to re-open it later, we get a message:
"This file was not closed properly, attempting minor repairs"
These 'minor' repairs don't work, and then we get a dialog box that
says the file is damaged, with a resume and a quit button. The resume button
sometimes allows access to the file (rarely), but usually just brings the
dialog box back up... The quit button quits.
Now, the manuals say that when something like this happens, you use
the 'recover' function. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. For example,
sometimes when you attempt to launch the recovered database, it hangs the Mac.
Sometimes when you recover a 490K database file, the recovered database size is
6K! Lately we've been getting more serious errors:
"This file is badly corrupted or is not a FileMaker Pro file"
Yeesh!
The errors happen much more frequently when we keep database files on
the remote AUFS drive, but they still happen, even when working on a local HD.
It is possible that AUFS is off somehow, but we've never had ANY other problems
with it, and it is in wide use here...
When I called Claris, they suggested:
1) Raising the memory on the app to 2Mb. I did, no joy.
2) Cloning the database (i.e. writing out the definitions without any
data), and then exporting the data to it. (They said this would
result in a 'cleaner' file ?!?) I tried this also, no joy.
Any help will be gratefully and humbly accepted. It's a nice app, does
all the things we want it to, but it's unusable this way! Fooey.
BTW, thanks to all those who helped me with my MacDraw problem. Works
fine now!
Thomas Ruschak
ts@ecn.purdue.edu
pur-ee!pc!ts
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