Filemaker works great.... then not so great. HELP

[s1miller]

Hello. I'm new to the forum. At my company, I recently took over the web admin duties from someone who was "asked to leave."

The problem is... we have an employee directory database that was made in Filemaker Pro. I'm trying to make this database available on the company intranet. I finally figured out how to make it work, but it only works for a little while.

I have Filemaker open and our employee database open on our intranet server. I can connect to the database beautifully. It works fine with Web Companion enabled.

The problem occurs after the database has been opened for a short amount of time and a handful of people ( less than 10 )have accessed it. At this point, the web browser will no longer connect to the database and you get a "page cannot be display" message.

Now... if I go and shut down the database and Filemaker, then simply restart the program and reopen the database, it works again.... then.... after a handful of people access it, the same problem happens again.

I get NO error messages on the intranet server or in Filemaker. What is going on?

[Fitch]

Sounds like you need to purchase FileMaker Pro Unlimited. The standard version of FileMaker Pro does have a limit on the number of IP addresses that can access it.

http://www.filemaker.com/products/fmu_faqs.html

"...there are four major differences between FileMaker Pro 6 and FileMaker Pro 6 Unlimited:

The Web Companion that ships with FileMaker Pro 6 Unlimited allows access to the Web Companion for an unlimited number of Web users. The Web Companion that ships with FileMaker Pro 6 is limited to 10 IP addresses in a rolling 12 hour period.

FileMaker Pro 6 Unlimited includes the FileMaker Web Server Connector. Additional copies of FileMaker Pro 6 Unlimited can be used to set up a Redundant Array of Inexpensive Computers (RAIC) structure to take advantage of scalable load balancing, and fault tolerance, to increase the performance of FileMaker Web enabled databases.

FileMaker Pro 6 Unlimited can be used with various CGIs, middleware, and application servers for deployment across the Web.

FileMaker Pro 6 Unlimited includes the tools and information needed to implement solutions using advanced functionalities (JDBC driver, Java class library, Custom Web Publishing with CDML, Custom Workgroup Portal, XML)."

[s1miller]

Thanks for the reply... and I've thought of that. Except the database stops working BEFORE the ten limit is reached.

[Leb i Sol]

Are you using Instant Web Publishing?......

while you answer you might want to look at the log files (assuming that you checked them of!

hmmm if NO then go to:

Edit-->Preferences-->Application...-->[Plug-ins]--> `/ Web Companion--> Configure... and check the Logging as u like

thse logs will be generated into c:/ProgramFiles/FileMaker/FileMaker Vx

they are text files called "Access" "Error" and "Info"....you will see who amd when did what. My guess is that larger files when Filtered or searched through will cause error that the file was not found and stop it from sharing on the web. Solution--> close and open the file/DB in question or.....yes CDML!

hope this helps

Good Luck

[Will]

Have you applied the updaters to your version of FileMaker?

[s1miller]

Actually I think I have the problem fixed. I noticed that the CPU usage was running between 85-93% on the server that was running filemaker and the database. When I cranked up filemaker and click around the CPU was maxing out at 100% and filemaker was locking up. I moved the database and program to another server and it hasn't crashed yet. Hopefully that was the issue.

[dwal]

What is the OS of the server you were having problems with? And what is the one you moved to? I am having very similar problem after upgrading to FM Unlimited 6 on Mac OS 10.2.4. Approximately every 36 hours the server stops serving.

[Steve T.]

dwal,

The gobbling of up resources leading to crashes has been complained about by many Windows folks and I have not heard of a good solutiion other than using Schedule to re-boot every day. No one seems to know how to fix it but some people just don't have this problem. I think it's a mystery.

On Mac OS X, many folks are having similar problems as you, usually UNEXPECTED QUITs. Until you figure out the problem, I recommend using CRON from the Terminal mode command line. You can use it to re-boot your system every day.

We re-formatted a G3/300 desktop and installed Mac OS X 10.2.4 and FMP-U 5.5 and have had NO problems. It has been better than hoped for. I suspect that upgrade paths are not as clean as fresh installs. If you upgraded from an older X or an older FMP, try fresh, new installs directly to your most current versions. I believe I read a Macworld article that mentioned "upgrade" problems for Jaguar and they recommended clean installs instead.

Folks who have complained to FM, Inc. about the UNEXPECTED QUITs have been instructed to re-boot every day or so. I guess we've been among the lucky ones and not had to do this. We re-boot about 1/month.