This error message keeps coming up when opening a database created in FileMaker 3.0 on Windows. The computer may or may not have had a virus. In addition, we cannot print to one of our printers from Filemaker, yet it prints to two of the other printers on our network fine?

We have recovered the databases in Filemaker, reloaded the Filemaker program, and reinstalled the drivers for the printer. Yet we still get the error message "this file was not closed properly, Filemaker is now performing a consistency check"? And, when I go to print to one of the printers we get another error message that says "this program has performed an illegal operation",and it gives us the option to shut down or ignore this error message?

I do not know what to try next. any help that you can give me would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks, Jeff Norensky

It's understandable that you get the "File not closed properly" if Filemaker quit with an illegal operation error, because Filemaker doesn't get the chance to close any open files when that happens. If you open the file, and let FM do the consistency check, and then close the file before you do anything that crashes Filemaker, it should open without the error message next time (assuming that the file isn't damaged beyond repair).

All that remains, is to figure out why you can't print on the one printer. You could have a corrupted layout in your database file. Are all the printers the same kind? You could have a printer driver conflict. I know that Filemaker 3 would crash when printing to certain Epson printers. This happened to me until I switched to FM version 5. In fact my experience printing with FM version 3 has been very bad.