I am running a shared databse using fmp5 but not the server version. Sometimes when a client computer is trying to connect to the entrance file "menu" at startup, it displays a message as follows:

"Cannot connect to "menu" because host is overloaded."

I have searched for information on the meaning of this message but have failed to find any. If I restart the server computer, and try again it works fine. The server is an eMac running OS9.2 and is very lightly loaded.

Thanks for any help that can be given.

Gary

How many files are you sharing with how many clients ?

The "normal" FM client has a limit in the number of files/clients that can handle ...

The limit isn't exact. It is a combination of files and users. You can have 50 files and one user or more users and less files. A normal copy might do 8 files and 20 users, but not 16 files and 20 users. If you are hitting this limit, it's probably time to buy server.

-bd

Interesting -- Filemaker claims that you can have up to 10 peer-to-peer users (without Server), and up to ... well, I forget how many files; I thought it was 25, but it may be 50. They also told me that these numbers were independent of each other.

I managed to dig out an old message by Jimmy Jones of FMI that provides some numeric parameters on the topic:

---- QUOTED MESSAGE -----

1. FMP can host up to 50 files at one time.

2. FMP can be a host to up to 25 guests

3. There is a maximum of 255 sockets (connections) in FMP I/O

(See TI Article Number: 104142

'Maximum Number of Guests Supported by a Host'

Although the article has not been updated to FMP 5 it is still the

definitive document for FMP sharing.

*** Excerpt of example ***

Here are some sample host/guest configurations supported:

50 open databases

-- 1 guests with 48 files open

-- 4 guests each with 10 files open

-- 13 guests: 2 guests with 10 files open and 7 guests with 4 files open

-- 24 guests each with 2 files open

25 open databases

-- 2 guests each with all 25 databases open

-- 7 guests each with 10 files open

-- 12 guests: 2 guests with 25 files open and 10 guests with 2 files open

-- 25 guests each with 2 files open

12 open databases

-- 7 guests each with all 12 databases open

-- 10 guests each with 8 files open

-- 25 guests each with 3 files open

From the article:

The total number of connections may also be limited by the sort of operations being performed on the host. If the host is in the middle of some operation that uses 5 or 6 temporary IDs, this would cause it to refuse new connections sooner than expected from the calculations above.