Importing

[Ricardo]

Hi All,

This one is a bit confusing (well for me anyway)!!

I import in to one of my Filemaker dbs from a dbf file.

The dbf file resides on one of our raids on our sunserver.

When i run the import from a PC it works no problem but when i run it from a mac it doesn't!

I can get it to work from a Mac by opening the dbf on the raid from a Mac and then by saving it in Excel.

This then works if i try it staright away, but for example if i try it several hours later it doesn't work again.

Even if i mount the raid volume on to the Mac it doesn't work.

Can anyone shed any light on this?

Would be appreciated,

Thanks,

ricardo.

[LiveOak]

Define a little more "doesn't work". Does is generate an error? Is it a manual or automated import? The error could be due to a problem with path to the source file or the source file being in use.

-bd

[Ricardo]

the import is run from a script.

The script has a 'trap' in it where if the current user count is > 1 then it halts the script so no more than 1 person can run the script at any one time.

The dbf file was on an NT box and it worked for both PC and Mac!!

now the dbf file resides on a raid volume on a sun server. the import works for PC's but not Macs.

Could this be the problem? if so can it be fixed?

it works if i open the dbf file in excel then save it and close it.

But it will stop working if for example i try running the import 30 minutes later.

Thanks for your help,

ricardo.

[spb]

This sounds like a path problem to me. When it fails, does it give you a "can't find file" error, and a window for you to navigate to the correct file? If not, how, exactly, does it fail?

If the former, are you working with FM 5.5 or 6? These versions have a "save relative path" option. I do something similar, involving .csv files on our NT server. I've found that the relative path option seems to work correctly on both platforms only if the text file to be imported resides within the same folder as the FM file being imported into.

If your source file is on your RAID, and you don't want to install the FM file on the RAID as well, you could either manually navigate to the source file every time you import, or have the routine that places this file on the RAID also install a copy in your FM folder (leaving the RAID version as a backup).

But if it fails in some other way, ignore all the above and tell us more.

Steve Brown

[Ricardo]

No indication comes up of a source path error.

All that happens is that a message appears saying there are no records to import.

which from the script means that it cant see the dbf to import, so it does seem to be from a mac - a souce path error is occuring!! but from a PC it can see the dbf as it is importing records.

Opening the dbf file from a mac in Excel and saving it makes the import work from a Mac but if i try importing for e.g. 30 mins later it won't work.

i am starting to think it is something to do with the raid been on a sun server, as when the dbf was on the NT box it worked fine.

The sun server is running solaris 7. the raid volume is shared out as a Mac volume through EtherShare, which i know is not a standard thing on solaris. so i'm guessing this is where or wherabouts the problem lies.

Can anything be done for this??

Thanks for your help,

ricardo.