I am trying this post in a different forum as I have not had satisfactory responses in the past.

We have five servers Mac/PC running FMS 5.03 and 5.5. Recently we have had the tow PC servers (Dell Poweredge 600sc, P4, Win 2000 Server) drop the host name from the FM network. We have had the same happen to a Mac (G4 tower, OS 9.1), but not for a long time.

To fix problem, we have to restart the server. Occurence is random and connected client are not effected. Have spoken to FileMaker, but they won't admit it is their problem. As clients already connected are not effected, it cannot be a hub/switch or NIC issue. I surmise that FM networking is failing to broadcast the server name. As it is cross platform, it is not a Win 2000 issue.

Any ideas? It is most annoying to shut down a server mid day.

use a directory service (Active Directory or NetInfo) or simply make a fixed entry in your host list. The problem might have to do with a DHCP Server running on your network.

Hi dvalley,

We had the same or a very similar problem. What was happening was at certain times during the day when a user pressed the HOSTS button the dialog box would come up blank -- no .fpx files listed. Turns out that one of the client computers was really messed up. Everytime that messed-up client would press the HOSTS button it would wipe out the host list for everybody. We rebooted the offending PC and everything cleared up.

We also had a couple other incidents like that and found out funky IP addresses at the client or client computers with more than one NIC can also wipe out the hosts list.

BTW: We're running FM 3.0v6 on W2K & XP.

Hope this helps,

-Ted

We trained 50 users to open files through IP.

Creating "opener" file will also help.

Opener files are currently in use company wide. All client machines started daily. This appears to be random early morning, late afternoon, noon, weekends, etc. Only one server effected at a time (usually a PC, but not always the same one). I suspect FM networking forgets to braodcast the server name, but nobody at FileMaker will listen.

Well, it happened again. Twice in one week, same server. This is starting to irritate me (us). To ahve to kick fifty client out of a server and restart it during a work day is most disruptive. There has to be a reason for it.

Why restart?

Go for the IP or "opener" file methods.

To get the system to open the files via forced IP address, we would have to rewrite the launcher (opener?) scripts and rework the relationships to show the IP of the server. (we have over 150 related databases and about twenty launcher scripts) We tried this once when it went down (forced the IP search on one client), the ripple effect caused much turmoil as other clients could not open the right files (via relationship or script) once the server was restored to normal operation.

The point is, why is it doing this in the first place? It never happened with version 3.

Launcher should have only single script with open everything and close itself.

IMHO -- when all files are open, there is no need to change anything at all.

Only when there are other multiuser files somewhere opened on the network, then there can be problems.

I have users open everything through IP, others via Server name and some through "opener" and everything works OK without single problem.

We contacted FileMaker just now about this issue. Finally, they agree that it has been seen by others. No real solution. We are resetting the cache flush from 15 minutes to 1 hr, 15min as the server flushed the cache just before it went into "stealth mode". We will also try moving a heavy use file from the effected server to a less used one to lower the hits on it. We are scrabbling in the dark (FileMaker and us), but if it works, we'll let you know.

Hmm, to lose 1 hr 15 min of work will be painful. Company where I was working month ago was doing backup every 30 minutes! Unsaved data in cache for so long....

One of my Client sites is having a similar problem.

FM6 served from OS X, only one OS X client is on the network (rest are OS 9 and WinXP). It is this OS X client having the random problem of the sever going missing in the Hosts window. However, they can connect by entering the IP address.

I think that it maybe IP problems (DHCP) on this network! Or, corrupt preferences on the OS X client.

If I find the solution I will let you know.

Good Luck.

Garry