Damaged / Corrupt File Problems

Good day, my Filemaker file is becoming a little sluggish but as it is now fairly large and complex, (400 + layouts) I reasonably expect that. However on checking my Activity Monitor I see that I am showing 398.82 GB of Virtual Memory Size. How is that even possible. Is there anything I should do to reduce this. Sorry I have not updated my profile. This is on FMP 22.02.202 on Mac OS 15.6

I have never seen this before. Recently started occurring. I have 2 folders that were created in my computer filesystem (I am assuming by FileMaker) with nothing inside of them. These folders "appear" to be date related: 6 for June; 27 for the day number. This data matches up with the "date modified" column on the operating system. See attached. I also have 2 files (they are empty - see screenshot) that have FileMaker-type terminology: "Evaluate (" "Get (DesktopPath) These folders and files are being created on my filesystem in the same folder as my FileMaker database. I have never seen this before. The only thing I have been doing, lite…

Hi, I have a damaged file which it takes hours and hours for recovering. And looks like it stuck in one place. I have records about more than 100,000. It took so long so I canceled the recovery and check the log file. And it always ends at the same place. ..... Quick reference. Anybody would know what this means ? Or know if this file is recoverable ? Or. What I should do to recover ? Thanks in advance.

I am a filemaker developer (FMP 19.6) and I just updated my Mac OS. My documents folder used to be on my Mac but somehow all the documents were moved to iCloud and not on my computer. I fixed it and the documents were downloaded apparently by having the cloud icon disappear. But I do not see a documents folder in my hard drive like before. My filemaker file has automated links to send emails with attachments. The attachments are not working and I am getting this message: Some of the files that are needed are either damaged or have not been installed. Please run the installer to correct the problem.

Hi everyone, I'm finding myself having to recover this file after just one record entry. Have done recoveries 5x already, with each time doing a backup. Does this mean the file is damaged beyond a good repair? Would I need to restart from one of the old backups? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

I recently upgraded to FM Server 19 and FM 19 from FM 18. I didn't have any immediate reason of concern to run a Recovery, but I periodically run Recovery on backups to check if there's anything to be worried about. The database failed the Recovery process in Filemaker 19.4 but it passed it in Filemaker 18.0.3.317. In the Filemaker 19 recovery logs I identified two old functions that were no longer in use that caused the Recovery failure, deleted them and then the DB successfully passed Recovery in Filemaker 19. I went back and tested several backups from the last 12 months and found the same issue: the backups passed recovery w…

I try to import a CSV file from FM to WC but get an error this is not a UTF-8 file. Does anyone else have the same problem?

Hi you guys..... I posted this a while back and really never received and feedback on it. FileMaker Pro 17 MAC.......the interface fonts are displaying strangely. Just a bunch of symbols. See attached jpg How can I get a ledgeable font to appear in my working interface? Reesche

I need to change line end from CR to LF when I export from FM.

Windows 10 - Pro 21H2 - OS Build 19044.1586 - Feature Pack Windows Feature Experience Pack 120.2212.4170.0 The Windows font base becomes corrupted from time to time and shows very strange characters what may cause this and is there a permanent solution? When this happens the default reads: [email protected]. I can change this to whatever font I want in the list and it maintains, but it is certainly a pain having to do so. Thank you in advance for your time and input.

I understand why I'm getting this message (the db is hosted on FM Server v19.x), but with the table/T.O.-heavy database I'm working on, how do I find the offender? There aren't any files listed in External Data Sources and I don't see any italicized T.O. names, so short of going through every single connector/T.O. in the Relationship Graph, is there an easier way of finding the culprit?

I sent a press release recently, showing how one of my customers solved a FileMaker file corruption problem using FmPro Migrator. Quote from Gordon Cox, Enrich: "With a corruption in the main file we were faced with rebuilding 40 tables, 306 TOs, 159 layouts and 463 scripts. FmPro Migrator to the rescue and a few hours later we have a new, not corrupt, file saving us at least a weeks work. FmPro Migrator has saved the day." FmPro Migrator has the ability to rebuild FileMaker files as part of the Table Consolidation feature. On macOS, FmPro Migrator uses AppleScript GUI automation to automate the processing of hundreds or even thousands of FileMaker object…

Newbie here. I'm trying to transfer an address book database from FM 11 to FMP 16, using .fmp12 suffix on the files. When I open FMP 16 I see the data, but the fields don't match up. e.g. Street Address lands in the First Name field. Any advice appreciated.

Help! I have a simple FMPro 16 database with 14 records and 4 layouts, which is used only by me on my Mac (to generate text files from pasted data, and to send out simple emails). It was working fine a few days ago, but today whenever I use Record>New Record it "hangs" (I get the "spinning pizza of death"). I am uploading a Compacted copy here, and would be grateful if anybody can help me to get it working again. Many thanks. JCOM__v7 Copy COMPACTED.fmp12

Hi- I found myself in a very bad situation - not sure if it is related to a corrupted file. Two days ago myself and. all our users found ourselves unable to log in to our database. I am the admin. The message we get is "your access privileges do not allow you to perform this action." Never had this happen before. We are on FMP18. Any suggestions or insights? thanks! Paola

Hi I'm probably in the wrong place but it was the closest offered in the menu of topics. I am using FM 16 and am a novice. I was recently changing button scripts on an existing database and somehow replaced the current file with an old version. So I copied and pasted the files from a backup back to their original spots and all seemed OK until I tried to change something in the layout. When I am now in the Edit Layout mode and click anywhere inside the window I get an error telling me the layout is not modifiable. I checked the security panel and I am listed as having permission. I would appreciate any help.

There are many times when I open FMP only to find that my file contains absolute gibberish where English text should be. I always have to reboot my machine, and then I must logon to FMP first before any other applications. If I open FMP after I have been working for a while in other applications, I get the gibberish. I would like to include a screenshot so you can see what I mean, but I don't see where to attach a file. I just want to know if this happens to anyone else, and whether there is a known issue and/or solution. This can be very frustrating when I need to quickly get into my database for something, and I'm in the middle of a dozen other things as well. 😬 …

Hello, all. I've got a fairly simple database I use for creating tweets for social media, but it's clearly got some damage, as I occasionally get a "color wheel of death" followed by "can't write data" errors, followed by a long random string of text. Quitting and reloading the database makes it work again for another 30 mins or so, but it's frustrating. Following Filemaker's advice, I tried saving a compacted version of the database. But when I use the database, I get new problems, like the error below followed by another dialogue that says Error -1700, which doesn't seem to exist. Specifically, in the compacted version (and ditto if I recover the database, which I …

Hi, There is a layout in our database that is in a folder titled Corrupt. This layout will not delete. The layout does open and seems empty but when trying to edit or duplicate and mainly delete it - after selecting "ok" in the delete warning dialogue - nothing happens. Based on the DDR, there are no objects in the layout, it does not have a theme and it is not associated with any table. Any suggestions? Cheers! Sam

I have a script which refers to a field with a value list that is not longer functioning properly. The value list has been edited, yet when you are in browse mode, it appears to be the old value list that comes up. I created a new list, and pointed the field to it, yet it does not recognize the new list and is still only showing the options in the old value list. Any ideas? I don't want to lose the old data, just needed to add additional options in the list.

My database is starting to act strange, some users are experiencing random crashes, I’ve had records that seem to just disappear, records make relationships with other records they shouldn’t be and I’m suspecting potential corruption and this is going to be the first time I make use of my backups and try to A) Identify if I have corruption and B)) potentially fix it. I have a few different questions in regards to best practices and next steps. I am running FMS 15. Most users are on FMP 16, a few users are on FMPA 17. About 10 users total. All users are on Windows 10. Server has Windows Server 2012 R2 Standard. 1) I have backups saved on the host machine, on…

Hello, i have to rebuild a corrupted database so i need to start from zero, my question is: can i copy the scripts, fields, etc to the new database? Or i have to write all the scripts?? Please let me know thank you

I write very complex commercial and custom programs for science, engineering, and business, often using FileMaker. I know that I'm taxing FM's abilities---and it sometimes chokes. With FileMaker 7, if I click on a tab to go to a different layout, the new layout appears instantly, even though the calculations have just begun. But in FileMaker 11, if I click on a tab to go to a different layout, the new layout doesn't appear until the calculations are completed. However, if the calculations are very complicated, the new layout appears almost entirely white! Now, sometimes FM will complete its work and display all the fields, as it should; in other cases, FM seems to b…

I have solutions that include a local file residing on a workstation that interacts with a hosted file. The local file does not need the hosted file for data entry; the connection is to download a job list and upload time entries. In FileMaker 16 and earlier, should the local file had been connected to the hosted file and there was a network interruption, the hosted file would reconnect or fail to do so, but the Local file would not be impacted. In FileMaker 17, if the connection cannot be re-established to the hosted file, the local file is now forced to close. That in and of itself would not be a big deal, but when the local file closes, NO DATA IS COMMITTED and DATA IS…

Scenario: I login about once a week. Yesterday upon starting up, I was able to open Filemaker Pro Advanced 13 on I think Mac OS updated last year, (just last night updated to the most recent OS for iMac hoping that would fix the issue I describe in the next sentence) From the FM database launch screen I opened my database. The startup script began, the database window opened showing the initial layout, and as part of the script a popup window opened telling me I was logged in as an admin. Once I clicked ok (or cancel) the database and desktop program quit and I get a report/ reopen message. Second test: I tried logging in as different users to the sa…

Not sure if this is the right forum or not. Couldn't find a forum specific to backups. I am moving away from FM Server. Long story. I'm finding out that backups are a challenge with FM Pro since you should never backup an open FM database. Does anybody have any suggestions? I've been trying to find a backup utility that will automatically close a file and then reopen it after backing it up. That would be the ideal solution. Trying to keep from requiring my end users to close and open the database every day. That would be a real pain. Thanks in advance for any help you can send my way!

Out of the blue, I can no longer launch my FMP 11 Advaced file. When I try to open the program I encounter a message that states: "This application has been installed incorrectly or modified by another program. Please run the installer to get a fresh copy of the application after determining the cause." I have tried a number of things, including reinstalling FMP, deleting my cache folder, and starting the Mac in Safe mode. All to no avail. The only change in my Mac is upgrading from OS 10 to OS 12. Can anyone give me a clue about this? Where do I start troubleshooting this problem?

Anyone know of a way to scan the integrity of an fmp12 file from the command line so it can be automated with each backup from FM server? Best practice is to test your backups occasionally but to scan them with every backup would be best. I recently ran into a situation where one of our main FM databases went corrupt (and would not recover) while online (no power outage, no service restart, nothing I can point to as to why it occurred). I was able to go back to the previous day's 5pm hourly backup and get a healthy copy so the data loss was minimal (about 3 hours of business time). The backups for the current day (3 hourly backups worth before I caught it) were a…

FM 15 ADV, Windows 10 64 bit. The DDR report is not showing the layouts and scripts that a field is used in. Can this be fixed? If not, is it possible to get and use an earlier version of the DDR?

I changed a field from stored to unstored and now my database will not open. I have a recovered database and a backup from yesterday. I know where the issue is to resolve it. Is there a way to open the file and get to the manage database so I can correct the problem? Thanks

Hello everybody We are about to move from FM 11 to FM 15. But one of our FM 11 files shows an unknown menu entry, which shows in the DDR report. Please take a look at the video. We never a had database crash or someting like that. How do I get rid of it ?? i just checked the backups.... this has been part of the solution from day one :/ brrrrrrrrrr

YIKES! I tried to generate a DDR for my solution and got the following error: SAXParseException: Invalid character 0x12 in attribute value 'PlatformType' (Occurred in entity C:/Users\guys\AppData\Local\Temp\FMTEMPFM5128_4.tmp', at lime 24503, column 981.) I have attached a screenshot for clarity. The PlatformType bit is interesting as I work on the file at my office on a PC (Windows 10) and at home on a Mac (OS X Sierra). I clicked the OK Button three times and a DDR popped up, but only contained the Report Overview Page: The correct amounts of Tables, Relationships, etc. showed up, but none of the links work: It's an empty DDR. After shuttin…

One of the database was corrupted. So we have created clone of that database and performed recovery. We have imported records from this recovered file into new clone file. This database is connected(relationship) to other database.e.g there are two database Department & employee database.These two table are created via DEPT_ID.I performed recovery on employee database. Department Employee DEPT_ID EMP_ID DEPT_NAME DEPT_ID EMP_NAME Now When I create new employee for XYZ department.It is assigned to the another department. How to solve this ? …

Hi, Not sure if this is the correct forum for this issue. I have a customer that just started getting this error 307. I've updated to Filemaker 14 just about the time I started seeing this error 307 on my machine, I am trying to understand what the error is. Any understanding / link I would be grateful. All I am seeing is that the users need to update to the next version to clear this error. Customer is not to happy about the update option. Is there another way, process, work around ? Thank you.

Hi there, We run FileMaker 9. Our server crashed, and we had to reenter about 10 days of data. Yikes - I know After the re-entry of data, I had to edit the dates of the re-entered items to match the original dates. After doing that, the new date entered isn't being recognized by our sales report scripts. For e.g. I re-entered orders from May 5th, The order date was May 12th, the date they were re-entered. I then when back and changed those orders to May 5th to match the original dates. When I run any sales report, it says there are no orders for May 5th. They are being added to the May 12th reports instead. I'm at a loss...Any help would be greatly a…

I'm fairly new to FM, using 14 Pro. I've been working on a client databse, among other things. Last night I did a bit of work on one of my projects. This morning I opened it again and all the characters have been replaced by mathematical symbols and similar characters. FIeld labels, field contents have been changed, but not text such as field names. When I opened other projects, most opened in the same, corrupted way. I tried starting new projects from starter solutions, and they all open with the strange characters. The one file which opens normally is one I previously started with the 'tasks' starter solution. I've attached one screenshot to demonstrate. …

I'm seeing some very strange behavior with FileMaker 14. I'm using `LayoutObjectNames` for some required functionality. On the development system it's working fine. It returns the list of named objects on the layout. I close the file, zip it up and send it to the client, and that required functionality isn't working. He sends the file back and I open it and get a data viewer up. The function returns nothing. I go into layout mode and confirm that there are named objects on the layout. The first time this happened and I tried recovering the file. In the recovered file it worked, so I assumed some corruption had happened on his end. I told him to trash the file I had give…

I cannot open my Outlook 2013. If I try to open it I get "Cannot start Microsoft Outlook. Unable to open Outlook window" error Anybody knows the solution to the my problem?

Hi, we ran into an issue last week when we were unable to select certain global fields to where a value list would drop down, basically when the customer clicked into these global fields "No Value List". We ended up replacing those fields with "New" globals and reassigning the value list. However, to our discovery, when we try to create a new "Contact" we get the spinning beach ball and when I navigate to the "Force Quit" under the "Black Apple" I see that "Filemaker" is not responding. I've isolated the issue to one field, this field is a "Sum" field to another table where we sum the field "Total" and sum the field "Paid" and subtract; Sum ( Contact ID to…

I have a portal set-up to track labor costs in each project record. Our staff will enter the labor costs, which are connected to the record by a JobID. The Labor table is set-up to allow creation of records, but the option to Delete related records is not checked. Frequently, after several weeks or months have passed, with the labor cost visible in the portal, it will disappear. It is not found in the Labor table, it seems to be missing, without anyone manually deleting it (permissions are restricted for all but the Administrator to do this). Suggestions for what other settings I should look at to resolve this? I am using Filemaker 12. Thanks,

Good day folks, One of my clients is experiencing strange issue on one of his computers. He has FM Advanced 12 installed on this PC, and when you open the “Inspector” window in “Edit Layout” mode, some of the features are missing. For Example, the “Position” tab is missing. Moreover, on “Data” tab, the “Hide object when” is missing too, and therefore all the hidden objects are unhidden now on all layouts. I checked the same file on my PC and it works in order. I already ran the update of FM so he has the latest version installed on his PC. Your help and Ideas would be highly appreciated. War…

I have a file that is built on top of the Starter Invoice app, FM13. All of a sudden it will no longer open. I tried recovering the file, but got the message that the file was rebuilt and no errors were detected. When trying to open the file it hangs FM, I have to use the Task Manager to close FM.The file still will not open, any ideas on how I can recover it? Thanks

I compared my live file with the "recovered" file, where FileMaker made changes to field options in 3 of my fields. No other errors were noted in my recovery process. The 3 fields that were changed are unstored calculations, and for some reason they are all set as "indexed" in my live file. The recovery process removed that indexing. Any ideas on what might have caused my fields to become indexed in the first place when they are unstored calculations? I can't fix it in my live files, because clicking the indexing box is not even an option on an unstored field.

Is there a reference for the meaning of the error codes used in the Recovery log? I have the following and am not sure what it really means: 2015-10-01 13:40:33.983 -0700 BAI Time Billing.fmp12 0 Recovering: field 'Employee Code' (7) 2015-10-01 13:40:33.983 -0700 BAI Time Billing.fmp12 0 Recovering: field 'Date' (8) 2015-10-01 13:40:33.983 -0700 BAI Time Billing.fmp12 0 Recovering: field 'Hours Entered' (12) 2015-10-01 13:40:33.999 -0700 BAI Time Billing.fmp12 8483 Field options corrected 2015-10-01 13:40:33.999 -0700 BAI Time Billing.fmp12 8476 This item changed 2015-10-01 13:40:33.999 -0700 BAI Time Billing…

Everything is working fine in the solution, except that I need to add a field to one of the tables in the solution. File/Manage/Database hangs the system causing me to 'Force Quit' the application (same result in Windows 7). File/Manage the other options works fine. I have gone through 'File/Recover' and the recovered file gives the same result. Other files/solutions do not experience the problem. I'm using FMPA 13. Any suggestions?

I have a client where the FMP application will no longer launch. Others are accessing the same database via the server without trouble. The client has been using FMP 11v3 for at least a year on a Windows 7 laptop without trouble. I had the client uninstall both Filemaker 11v3 and Bonjour. Then restart the Win7 laptop and then reinstall FMP 11 and run the updater to v3. The application will still not launch and gives the same message. The error message says, "FileMaker Pro has stopped working A problem caused the program to stop working correctly. Windows will close the program and notify you if a solution is available."

I'm designing and working with my first Filemaker database using Filemaker 12 Advanced and Ipads using the Filemaker Go app (self hosted). I am having issues with random records going missing from the whole database (in each table and TO). There is no evidence that the record was ever in the database at all and this only happens every once it a while and is not restricted to a single Table; it happens in multiple tables, randomly, with no correlation between the instants. I would say 1 record in 50 goes missing daily. I have 9 main tables that are connected with a key. Each table has TO of every other table attached to share information through portals on each table. Tab…

I am finding that when I try to create the first record in a child table via a relationship, it doesn't work (101 record is missing). But if there is at least one record in the child table, things work as advertised. Do others have this experience? Is it a "feature"? Any way to get around it other than to just add a dummy record to the child? TIA

Help! I've been working on a file very intensively for the past month or so and today I tried, for the first time, to share it peer-to-peer. When I opened it on the remote machine I noticed that my main layout was acting strangely - fields that were supposed to be hidden were not, one field is empty, and so forth. So I looked at the layout on the remote machine and see a whole lot of crap! None of the unknown objects show up on the host machine. So I deleted the unknown objects on the remote machine and when I went back to the host the file was totally bonkers. I tried to copy and paste an object between layouts and it won't paste. When I go from layout mode to brow…

I'm encountering a subtle behavior that I can't seem to work around or fix. I have a script that opens a window to select a subset of students from those in a master table. In the layout for the selection, I have two buttons (on top of each other) that set a global field to include or exclude the current primary key in the list of selected students. It all works fine except for one glitch. When I first open the window with the list of students from which to select, I want to move to a record that I think the user is likely to select (a sibling). So I Go to Field(studentname), then do a Perform Find/Replace on the current field with the name that I want to look for, …

Hello there - Somebody please help me..... I have a user who is experiencing problems with data entry on the database - when she re-opens the database, the information she has entered is missing. Anybody experienced this problem before? Please share ideal solution if any - Welcome any further question there may be. Many thanks, Miss A!

Hi forum. I discovered a corruption issue in my DB while being helped with a relationship issue (by Comment). Was wondering if anyone has seen this before. I can't pinpoint the source as it happened, but these corruption issues pop up whenever I work on the DB from home on my Windows 8 laptop, instead of my Windows 7 desktop. I saw some issues when I use the peer to peer setup to check things in real time on my iPad. I also noticed when I close the DB on the laptop, there seems to be a lag in saving changes. IOW, I open it right back up and some of the changes I made weren't there. Same thing happens if I closed a file, and immediately copy it to dropbox, or a thu…

This database has been fine for years. I constantly check it using FMPA's Recovery and compare the before & after using FMDiff. It was OK immediately before adding a calc field. After that Recovery reports issues with the database (log at the bottom). This is 100% reproducible. Even a simple calc like ["abc" & "def"] causes the fail. FMPA sometimes crashes when closing Manage Database and sometimes when closing the file. All Mac environment with 10.6.8 Snow Leopard (don't ask...). I develop offline using FMPA 11, upload to FMS 11 serving FMP 11 users. All software updated. I installed FMPA 11 on a different 10.6.8 Mac, same problem. I tried cloning, same probl…

Hi forum. I received this message when copying my DB to a thumb drive. Message doesn't appear when copying to dropbox. Never saw it before. Was wondering if this is possible corruption? I also tried it on another thumb drive. Any help or guidance is always appreciated Thanks Steve

Hello Forum, I haven't been here in a long time but recently started modifying my FM 10 database and have now encountered a problem that I can't solve. I'm unable to remember what I may have done to cause this (I think I had created an opening script that locks and hides the status line) but when I now open my file the screen turns grey and only shows <NO ACCESS>, almost all menu functions are disabled (e.g. can't get into script manager) and I'm also unable to repair the file. Does anyone know how I can manage to open my file? I have attached it to this posting. Thanks, Andy

If while developing code, I end up having to force quit because a script doesn't complete, and the file starts up fine after I change ports and relaunch, can I count on the database not having been corrupted? I have done a consistency check (no errors) and compacted the file for good measure. Should that be enough, or should one as a rule always go back to the most recent copy and manually rebuild changed scripts, add new fields to the database, etc.?

Hi forum. I've never had this pop up when copying a file to my thumb drive for back up. Is this an indication of possible file corruption? Any help or thoughts are always appreciated. Thanks Steve p.s. sorry about the title, cant correct the grammar after I posted.

Which files do I need to copy/backup in case something goes wrong? I want to re-install FM Pro Advanced 11 because "Clean My Mac" removed som "unnessecary" files, which gives me some errors on start-up. Everything else works as far as I can see, but this irritates me. Besides of the program folder and /Library/FileMaker Server/Data/Databases/ are there any other files/folders I must include? Can I run a new install on the default location without loosing my scripts and other user defined stuff or will I get a "clean" FM?

Hi, I have a small issue that's been nagging at me for a while. One file in a multi file solution fails Recover. The file functions perfectly. Some years ago when running Recover I started noticing a pattern FM would attempt to recover Table " " then create a new table "Recover". It also created a field "Recover" in two tables. If I open the Recovered file and delete these three items, then run Recover on the copy the file gets a clean bill of health. Even my oldest backups of this file (when it was tiny) show the same problems so I don't have a clean backup. I've never used a Recovered file. Now I'm trying to decide whether to just leave good enough alone…

Hello.. Some time ago I was getting regular FM crashes.. No error code.. FM just not responding This happens when I am in Edit layout, Layout, and I click.... Set Tab Order !!!! What really works for me NEVER CRASHED AGAIN.. when I want to adjust Set Tab Order Is FIRST... select Layout Order.... then click OK Then Set Tab Order Don't know why?

I guess this is the best place. I have a group of files which I work on all the time. Excel, my FM stuff. So it is easy to keep them in a WORKING folder and be sure everything is saved and closed and then move the folder to dropbox. Once I am home on my other computer, I open dropbox. I've been moving the WORKING folder to my desktop and continue working. But sometimes I forget and open the copies in dropbox instead. It seems to work fine but is it really safe or can it damage an FM file? Thank you for considering my post.

My large database has been acting up for a while. Symptoms: Frequent crashes (Filemaker has quit unexpectedly). Sometimes as many as 5-6 times a day. Sometimes not for a while. Occurring a lot since I upgraded to FMA 13 in January. Recent file not closed errors. ("Filename" is currently in use and cannot be opened...) or ( The primary file, "Filename" is either not part of this application, is damaged, or is already open.) These errors have only been happening for the past several days. Background: I'm a professional furnituremaker who has used Filemaker to run my business since Filemaker 3. It's grown A LOT since then in function and scope. It keeps my custome…

Unfortunately "Clean My Mac" has removed some files from my system. If I start FMP 11 by clicking the program icon I get the following error message: ERROR FileMaker can bot share files over the Web because instant Web Publishing could not be started. If I start FMP by double-clicking a *.fp7 file I get the above + this: The document "catalogue 2014.fp7" could not be opened. Filemaker Pro Advanced cannot open files in the "FileMaker Document" format. I vere very much in doubt about where to post this. Please correct me if this forum thread is not the propiate.

I was a database administrator using FM 8.5 ten years ago. I left that job, and now ten years later, I need to manage a database again. I installed my 8.5, imported 300+ records, but now, it will 1) not allow me to create envelopes (layout frozen in the wrong dimensions) and 2) the screen goes black when I click and hold the mouse. What is my 8.5 telling me?

How useful is Recovery (in FileMaker Pro 11 and FileMaker Pro 13) as a pre-emptive diagnostic tool? If problems are fixed and reported, even if no symptoms of any problems are apparent, would you recommend alerting these clients to a need to rebuild those solutions from scratch and begin that process? Or…since there are no data or performance issues manifesting themselves in the live files, would you recommend just proceeding as is, understanding that there is the possibility of corruption later? Here's some context... I ran recovery on a number of separate client solutions, and many came back as having had a few structure or schema items modified (under 10) and no b…

new used laptop MacBook Pro. I had my program open but it was not served, just on my laptop. Two things is first it came on like energy shut down and then later I forgot and closed the laptop and I think it shuts down because I have to log in again. So question is did I hurt my file when energy saver shut it off or when I closed it? I never had a laptop before. I turned off the energy and screen saver but I worry about my file now. ps can you tell me what forum this should be under? None seemed to fit my need so I hope this place is okay to post.

One of our hosted FMP11 files recently started misbehaving, where a script that had been running reliably for months suddenly became unreliable and did not always update records as expected. Detailed examination of the scripts and the data didn't give us any pattern for the problem so we suspected data corruption. Our first recourse was to run a recover on the previous nights backup. The recovery process produced an unusually large Recovery log, nearly 4Mb in size, rather than the more usual 200Kb, but still ended with the message "Recover built a new database without detecting any problems." When we investigated the recovery log, we saw a very large number of lines …

I'm running FM11 Pro Advanced on Win 7 Pro. Through some quirk of my main Win 7 user account, I've lost the formatting (style and icons) for the FileMaker Help File (example attached).  Filemaker runs fine, but the appearance of the help file is degraded. It might have something to do with the ownership of some file(s). But I don't know of a way to identify the dependencies. In fact, I didn't know any of FMP's resources were located away from the Program Files directory.  Would anyone happen to know if there are "external" dependencies?  Thanks in advance.  Â

I can't set a field with a calculated result in a particular filemaker file. If I set a field with a calculation of something like 4 + 4, filemaker converts the calculation to "4 + 4"... a text string... it puts inverted commas around the calculation! Weird... here's a movie of it happening... www.smartproof.com.au/filemaker_weird.mov Surely I'm missing something... this can't be a corrupt file can it? It works fine in a brand new file. Anyone else seen this behaviour?

Hi there, I went into a data base I haven't touched in quite a while and found my date range for determining a portal sort all messed up. I now have some foreign asian characters in it. Have I been hacked? I never made any changes to the data base and it has always worked fine in the past. It appears to be just the year and only on this page.What went wrong. Any ideas?? See screen shot below. Help!

Hi Folks, My MacBookPro crashed this morning, and my Assessment database has dissapeared. Obviously I've got backups - TimeMachine and Backup, but TimeMachine doesn't seem to be working and it's not where I thought it should be in BackUp. The file hasn't just corrupted, it doesn't seem to exist anymore. It's not on Filemakers recent file list either, despite being open at breakfast this morning. Could I have possibly managed to have it existing only in RAM and not on harddisk at all for a couple of weeks without noticing? I've searched with Spotlight and it doesn't seem to exist at all. This is about two week work and kids grades down the drain. :-( Hump…

I have a file that is "sort of corrupted". Strange behavior, specifically merge fields failing to print, has me puzzled. I have tried recovering the file, but that does not help. I then tried creating a clone and importing the records from the old file into the clone - also did not work. are there any other steps that I can take to cure this problem? TIA

Hello Everyone, We have a filemaker file that is damaged. When we try to recover it, filemaker suggests we stop using the file and extract the data. We however continued using the file anyway as it is a crucial part of the overall system. At the same time I started creating the file from scratch. The file itself is quite big, more than 100 fields and 800000 records. It's been around for about 10 years therefore the fields have just kept adding. These are the steps I followed to create the new file ; 1. Create a new filemaker file with the same name as the old one. 2. Create all the tables that were in the old file. 3. Create all datasources as in the old fi…

Tell you why? trying to figure My system crashes out of FM // no error...to often... Wat I notice, I press TabOrder key when editing layout? Copying as, compact, re placing file, it i tried.. and tried already, I have removed misc layouts, pieces of..asked questions... freaked every time I need to set my TabOrder.. sometimes it works? This time again.. I noticed... just before the crash... i saw something like... saying 339 of 525 Tabs??? Noted in that layout just before the crash. Where these #'s coming from? .. I would never have intentionally make that many tabs.... but... maybe over time or there something weird going on with…

I am now running v12 v.03, love it but.... it crashes... doing the same.. in version FM 11 for years never never a crash have Win 7 good equipment.. everything pretty up to date etc Took the files to my Laptop with FM 12.... didn't happen as often... thought everything was fine... then it crashed too same place selecting Tab Order Today .. after modifying a layout, I regularly now when I click the Tab Order button,, M 12 crashes... no error message. Secondly, another error message, usually after..if trying to just start FM up again, without any kind of recovery as above .. Error R6025 Pure virtual Function Call ? …

The video shows the issue best, but to summarize: I am using a portal to create related records, the relationship utilizes a global field. Somehow, the portal showed data from a related record that doesn't seem to exist. If I go to the related table and show all records, there are no records. If I perform a find, a record is found, at which point the toolbar shows a 1/0 Found records. I've seen this twice now; once in a FileMaker 11 solution, this one in FileMaker 12. Has anyone else seen this before?

So I'm neck deep into my first database design using filemaker and would describe myself between novice and intermediate. The needed functionality was prioritized over well thought design due to time concerns so there is a lot of going back after the fact and fixing being done. I'm prefacing so I can perhaps be spared the lecture - I know this is a bad form but the company I work for needed a solution quickly. So now my database is producing a bug I'm trying to understand and fix. For some reason the text within the projectName field of my Projects table has been occasionally repeating itself within the field. For example, if the project is titled 'Hyatt Hotel - …

Hi FileMaker started to crash few times a day. I get the next error: FileMaker has stopped working Problem details: Problem Event Name: APPCRASH Application Name: FileMaker Pro.exe Application Version: 12.0.1.183 Application Timestamp: 4f62a0d3 Fault Module Name: DBEngine.dll Fault Module Timestamp: 4f629e86 Exception Code: c0000005 Exception Offset: 000c88b9 OS Version: 6.1.7600.2.0.0.256.48 Locale ID: 3081 Additional Information1: 0a9e Additional Information2: 0a9e372d3b4ad19135b953a78882e789 Additiona…

Fm 11 Adv. Suddenly I can't open the inspector (ctrl+I or menu). Any suggestions? Should I reload?

Help My FMP hosted by Digital Fortress crashed and disappeared last week. After I reported it to Tech Support, they helped me reconstruct my database and relaunch it, Its up and everything is there my website works my searchable database works Everything: EXCEPT when connected to the host site I am unable to modify any records. When not hosted I can modify everything but it is not showing I modified when I log back on to the hosted Remote. Did I not click something? Please Help.. Lost in FMP land... :-) :hmm:

FMP12a on Win7 I have a list of scripts that all run fine but one. They are called from another script that uses If/Else. This one script is getting the error when called from the mother script. The one script works fine when called directly from the script menu. I've tried everything I know. Deleting and rewriting, renaming, changing the list order, nothing works. Could there be a limit on how many else/ifs I can have? Reducing their number didn't work. Restoring the solution from backups and writing the one script anew didn't work. All I have is "error 8432 page 260 marked free but not in free list" The runtime message is "script canno…

Hey everyone, I've looked around on the net and forums, and wasn't able to find a solution to my problem, so bare with me if it's a simple solution. I've got a file that become corrupted (improperly closed), and has since been crashing. I ran recover, compacted, re-created various layout elements, and it seemed to work well, for a while. Now it's crashing again. I'd like to know what the best way to rebuild the database is. I've seen recommendations to build it from scratch, and am ready to do so, but does this mean re-creating every element, or opening a new file and importing the data and copy/pasting into the new file? To what degree would corrupted layo…

Hello All, I was just informed my predecessor at work created a huge and hugely important database that would help me out a lot if I could access. Unfortunately, he quit and was the only one that had access to the database, since it was his personal project at work. It's hosted on a shared server and our server administrators can't access the file either. I looked at old posts on here with similar threads and none of the ideas posted worked (e.g. id:Admin, pw:blank). Does anyone have any ideas for how to get back into this file? There are four or five files like this I'd like to access and I've seen FM password recover programs available, but am wary to download …

I have a mac that has been upgraded to OSX 10.7.4 and FileMaker Pro 11.0v4 and can no longer open FP7 files directly from a shared network drive. (the database is not a networked database, just a file on a shared drive. If I try, I get the following message: example.FP7" is currently in use and could not be opened. If the file is shared you can use the Open Remote command to open the file on the network.... The file is not open anywhere else and opens fine on another machine with an older version of OSX and FM. It also opens fine if I drag the file to the desktop and open it that way. Any ideas?? Thanks in advance

I have a production FileMaker 11 database that suddenly had all of the records in one table show up with "?" question mark characters in every field. Fortunately, I had a glitch-free backup that I used to get things going again for now, but there is still a week's worth of data in that table that needs to be recovered. I've tried the following methods to recover the data so far with no success: 1) Exporting the records to another file (CSV, Filemaker, XML) - only empty fields are exported. 2) Saving a Clone of the database, then importing the corrupt records into the clone - no data makes it into the clone. 3) Saving as a Compacted Copy - no difference. 4…

A recent FMS Server outage left us with a number of databases which were reported as damaged when we ran the Recover option on them. When we went to look at our 'clean' versions, several of these databases were also reported as damaged by the Recovery option, something which didn't happen when we ran them through the recovery process with an FMP8 Client. Aware that the FMP11 recovery process was supposedly 'improved', we looked at the detail in the recovery.log files produced. In many cases, the recovery process was reporting that grouped objects on certain layouts had been rebuilt like this. Curious, we examined the layouts which were showing the error…

Hello, I have a very large database that I have built over the past 5 years or so that I am running on a MacPro. I using the Lion OS/X 10.7.4 operating system. I originally built the database on fmpa10 and so am running the database on fmpa10. I tried upgrading to fmpa11 and running the database on fmpa11 but the database kept hanging when I would use the pause/resume script step within a script. So I switched back to fmpa10 and the problem went away. My database program gets run every weekday and takes about 10 hours to complete. By and large the program has run without problem however about a month ago the database started crashing and I would get a message saying Filem…

I have a contacts database that has worked fine for many years and I have modified it in FMP 11 with no problem. When I try to open it in FMP 12 (both Mac and Windows) it works fine, UNTIL I switch to Layout View to make some modifications. Then this particular datbase crashes FMP. I can generate a new database in FMP 12, so Layout mode itself is not the problem. If I use a Starter Solution (e.g. Contacts), I can switch to and use the Layout mode with no problem. So my thinking is that somewhere in my contacts database there is a problem, but I have no idea how to hunt for the problem. I tried saving a Clone, and the Clone still crashed on Layout.…

My solution crashed, and I recovered it fully. The problem now is that there is a record that is found that is empty. If I delete it, and do a specific find operation again, it reappears. Any idea what may be wrong? Thank you in advance, Fed

I used a ‘Replace Field’ operation to remove stray CR, and in the process accidentally overwrote the data. I do have a backup made right before the mess-up, but that mess-up was discovered only after heavy work was done on the original. No problem. What I want to do is replace the values in a given field with the values from matching records in the backup. What is the best way to do this?

THis is a new one for me. I've been working on a file today for several hours in no particularly unusual way. (FMP 12 Advanced) -- the solution has been open all day, i closed the file but not the software for a break. Upon return I re-opened the File, and now it's not letting me click into any of the layouts -- I can shift from Browse to layout mode etc, and the menus work, but I can't enter fields, and can't select anything in Layout. Worst of all, I can't close any windows or quit the program! These options are 'greyed out' in the menus and keystroke commands are impotent too. For an experiment I tried opening another (unimportant) file on my desktop, and …

I deploy runtime solutions to my customers who have no idea what to do if they encounter a 'file damaged' condition with the instruction to use 'file recovery'. What I would like to do is trap the condition and provide a custom instruction. Now they call paniced, I give them the simple instruction, and life is good in a few minutes. Can I trap and provide the message when the runtime encounters 'file damaged'?

About three years ago I sat down and read enough of the FM instructions to build myself an invoicing database. It has worked really well and I have been delighted with it - and felt very proud. It's quite simple but did what I needed. It was stored on a LaCie Network drive in "Safe Mode" ie RAID 1 (duplicated data on two discs) Two weeks ago the raid drive failed. The discs were OK but I just could not access the data. I took the drive to my local guys and they took my data off the disc using a program called "Windows Universal Filesystem Explorer" This program saw all my data and could extract it apparently and I have been sent the all important Filemaker …

If you are a FileMaker developer using FileMaker, please select one which you feel fits best EDITED: Well, I wanted radio button, LOL. Please select just one. I am performing this poll because many times I find regular (non-FM or tech) folks might not understand (or believe) that the innocent-looking Recover command might not do what they think its name says it does. In this way, those that really know FileMaker can let everyone else know ... ya know? The more votes the better but please only one, LOL :laugh2:

I was using FM5 originally and am now using FM11. When I access my files through a network both FM versions regularly lose the connection (presumably) and I get the 'delayed write' error message in my taskbar and then FM tells me it needs to close. If I was in the middle of defining a field or calcualtion then the file becomes corrupt and I then have to recover the file. Thankfully FM is quite forgiving in this respect! The problem became so frequent that I have now moved my files onto my local drive and just 'save a copy' every now and then on the server. Does this sound like a server issue? I have not approached my IT department because I am the only person in the …

Hi I eventually get a wrong found set when searching records with an unstored calc field > 0. However, the error only occurs, when the database is opened from a remote server. When it runs locally, i have never encountered the problem yet. The search criterions are a bit complex. Besides a few parameters for the base table record, there also is a criterion that claims a calc field to be > 0. This calc field counts the matching records in a related table using Count(related field). The underlying relationship is multi-value, including normal and global fields. The calculation works fine, it never yielded a wrong value in browse mode. Yet, the found set resu…

Not sure if my question goes in this topic or not but here it is: Can anyone tell me how much data can be stored in a FM 11 file. My Order system is not very complicated. Till now the file size is 10KB. Thanx

I have a multi-file Filemaker application. In one particular file ,there is a Specific table which has a single record.Through some process which i havent determined, this particular file is getting damaged and this single record is getting corrupt.All the fields display a question mark. The Filemaker version is Filemaker Server 11 and the Client has Filemaker 9. Any idea as to why this is happening?

I had a database that was running great for months. Shared and on a server in house. Now, It's unusable... even after recovery, and all data removed (I have mostly empty tables...)... I'm trying to track down the problem, and I'm spinning in circles. I have this log report. Can anyone see any possibilities. I see at the top of the list a reference to a dropped page with a script? Selected lines look like this: *** Started consistency check of improperly closed file, total of 335 block(s) to check 2011-11-01 11:51:58.865 -0500 LegacyDM.fp7 8440 ERROR: Page 326 invalid structure 2011-11-01 11:51:58.880 -0500 LegacyDM.fp7 805 FAILED consistenc…