I am creating a database using FileMaker Developer 6, and learning as I go. It appears that many of my files have been corrupted, as FileMaker quits on me several times a day. The files open up again and run fine (no recovery required) after quitting, but I cannot give this database to my workgroup until it is stable. I have gone through the recovery/export data/clone/import data process, but I just had another crash. This always occurs while I am running any one of several scripts designed to find a record using a calculated field, sometimes in a related file.

I am reconciled to the fact that I probably have to re-create the database (all 45 files! and lots of relationships), but want to avoid anything that will cause future corruption. Is there anything in I am doing in scripts, relationships or calculated fields that could cause corruption in the files? Anything I can do to avoid corruption in the future? Or is this corruption just part of living with FileMaker?

Any help or advice would be appreciated! Thank you!

It's not normal to corrupt files frequently. You don't say what platform your working from, but my guess would be that FM itself has been corrupted, and I would consider re-installing it. While its not the most stable app in the world, it doesn't blow up that frequently.

Try to isolate exactly which scripts are causing the error, then let us know precisely what's going on, and we ought to be able to help. There was a similar sounding crash reported this week, but I can't remember which forum it was in. If I remember, I'll post it here.

-Stanley

Are the files actually being corrupted? Sounds more like just the dbs are shutting down. If you are not having to recover, then I don't think any data has been corrupted.

I am going thru this too. FM crashes are frustrating to track down. The latest one is starting to look like multiple users trying to access the same data at the same time causing the associated db to shut down. Of course this is impossible so I'm sure it must be something else.

It could be that the dbs are just shutting down, or a corruption problem, or a combination of both. (I do have to recover a file about once every 100 or so crashes)

So far this database is running on my computer alone, and I am the only one accessing it. I re-installed FM Developer (with upgrade to Developer 6v4) last week. I am running it on OSX.2.6.

I will look more closely at which scripts seem to crash the most. One thing I have tried is trimming down the calculated fields used for the finds, and indexing them. Since doing this, have gone for three hours since the last crash!

Another thing I have done is to go back to my recovered/cloned/imported files and just backup like crazy. I don't think this will be practical though when other people start using the database (we plan to put it on a server...are we being too optimistic???).

If you let us see the file (or files) we might give you more precise diagnosis

Dj