Since May a customer has been successfully working with one main and two related files. Yesterday she noticed that 36 of 350 records stopped calculating an age (the field is based on record creation date minus customer-entered birthdate). By afternoon, 74 records, some of which were OK in the morning, no longer calculated age. Test records created today have the correct date.

Some creation dates are showing up as future dates (Oct. 03), even though their computer's internal clock shows the right day. Fields connected to a yes/no value list set to default to "no" are showing up with random numbers - on some records, but not all. Info from one of the related files has begun to disappear, as well.

No rhyme or reason for this. They claim to have current anti-virus software installed. None of the my other 36 customers have reported this issue.

Your expertise, please!

Mary Z

Have you tried recovering the files to see if that fixes it?

HTH, Mike

Yes, but it's hard to tell if that fixed it, since the disappearing data trick is so unpredictable. Nothing funky came up in the dialogue box after the recover was completed - nothing was skipped, etc.

Ever the optimist, I crossed my fingers and imported the data from the bad file into a working clone, hoping that the fields would straighten themselves out when they arrived in the new file. Alas, such was not the case.

Thanks for the idea. Any others?

Mary Z

Have you tried importing the data into a working clone on a different machine? Since your program appears to work for your other clients, lets rule out the machine variable.

HTH, Mike

Even more strange things are afoot. My customer had her network people retrieve a copy backed up 4 days ago. Strangely, 49 whole records had vanished into thin air between then and now.

I figure it's one of 3 things: the software itself, the hard drive where they have the working files installed, or their server. They sent me their files, which I imported into clone files that I know are good, and sent them back.

Time will tell if that solves things, or if there is something else on their end causing the problem.

Thanks for your help, Mike!

I have seen something similar with one of my clients. It turns out that they have had frequent power outages as a result of the electric company working on the power lines on their street. I asked their network person why there isn't an uninterruptable power supply on those computers to prevent those sudden power drops. I still haven't received an answer back from him.

Mike