mac crashing upon hosting a file

[pkudrle]

Last week the Server that carried a Filemaker Database crashed.

The two people that use the file are a MAC and a PC. The PC does

not seem to be having problems since the crash but the MAC is in trouble.

When the MAC tries to host the file, it crashes. We have tried recovering the

file, cloning it, etc, etc. When the PC Hosts the file the MAC does not crash right

away, but eventually it does. I have not seen anyone else mention this particular

problem and Filemaker's website does not list anything as well.

I check the TCP/IP connection and its still on. Any thoughts, my IT department

isn't the brightest when it comes to cross platform issues. And they haven't been

able to figure out the problem. Would trashing the preferences on the MAC help?

Could there be something wrong with the NEtwork Server and it has nothing to do with

the MAC?

Any help would be great, these forums are quite helpful.

[Helpful Harry]

Trashing the Preferences can't hurt (apart from meaning you have to re-enter them) and MIGHT help.

It's not likely to be the network server since you say the PC is working fine, although it may be some "Mac only" component that's been corrupted here.

Otherwise try re-installing FileMaker on the Mac. It's possible that when it crashed it corrupted the filesharing parts of FileMaker.

You might (also) need to reinstall the MacOS - although FileMaker uses it's own filesharing system and not Apple's in-built one, it's possible that the crash may have corrupted some of the MacOS software.

[Vaughan]

How is the file being shared: on a file server (network volume) or on a FileMaker Host (running FMP or FMS)?

[mark111]

I've had similar problems with shared files craching on Macs, can't say about PCs. The file frequently crashes, corrupts the data and sometimes can't be recovered. What I found (sorry I can't remember where) is that Filemaker does not like hosting a file that exists on another machine, i.e. the file is on a server and your machine opens it as a host.

Our work around was to set up the server to open the file first so that it is always hosted by the server. Everyone else uses the "open hosts" or "open remote" to open the file. The advantage is the even if your machine crashes the data is safe. The disadvantage is you need a copy of Filmaker running on your server. We've been doing it that way for about a year now and not yet lost any data or had to recover the file.