FM Pro 5 intermittent disconnect problems

[Dave Dunlap]

I'm new to this forum so I hope that this is the right section for this post - if it would be preferable to post in a different section please let me know.

Here's the situation:

Some workstations (local on the LAN) get disconnected for no apparent reason while they are running FileMaker Pro

Server is running FileMaker Pro Server version 5.x on Windows NT sp6a

I believe the server is a PIII ~ 600 Mhz with 512 Mb of RAM, IDE mirrored hard drives (this is a non-profit corporation, most hardware is donated) I've looked at the FileMaker Server options and they "seem" to be ok - nothing obvious that would seem to be a likely cause of the disconnects.

Workstations are mostly PIII with 128 to 256 Mb RAM running Windows 2000 - FileMaker Pro version 5.x (several are still on Win98)- The users run the application by launching a local copy of FileMaker and then opening a HOST connection to the database on the FileMaker Pro Server using TCP/IP.

Network is 100 Mb - inexpensive switch, mostly generic 100 Mb nics

IP addresses are all fixed (workstations and server)

There are usually 10 to 15 users in FileMaker at any one time. Sometimes a user will get "kicked out", some users more than others, very sporadic. Only one user is usually disconnected when it happens (everyone is not kicked off at the same time). This tends to happen more later in the day but we cannot associate that with anything that makes any sense.

No other applications are running ON the server, some file sharing and print sharing but it's fairly minimal.

This is a new office, with new wiring so that should not be a problem.

There is only one FileMaker application that is being run and I believe it has a total of about 29 files. File sizes are relatively small (total of all files is less than 100 Mb).

Several other non-profits who use this same FileMaker application say that they are not having this type of problem but they have only about 5 or 6 users. We have not been able to find anyone using this application that has roughly the same number of concurrent FileMaker users as we do.

Any thoughts on what might be happening or how we can go about troubleshooting this problem would be very much appreciated.

Thanks,

Dave Dunlap

[Will]

Dave -

Is it a mix of the Win 98 and Win 2000 PCs that get disconnected or just one O/S?

Are the user's actively using FileMaker when they get disconnected or has it been sitting idle?

Is FileMaker the only application that appears to have network problems?

Have you applied all the FileMaker updaters to the clients?

Will

[Dave Dunlap]

Will,

Thanks for the response.

Most of the workstations that get disconnected are Win 2000. (There are very few Win 98 ones left). Some users were getting disconnected while running on NT4 workstations but those workstations were recently replaced with Win 2000 boxes.

I'm not positive whether or not the users were "active" or not when they got disconnected. I'll check with them and post the answer on Monday.

FileMaker is really the ONLY networked application in use.

I'll also check with the client to make sure the updaters have been applied to all the workstations. Have there been any updaters issues for the Server?

Thanks!

Dave

[Dave Dunlap]

Will,

Regarding installing the updaters for FileMaker Pro 5 (if they haven't been installed)

Do you have to apply the v2 updater before you can apply the V3 updater, or does the v3 updater include all updates since the time of theh original release?

Thanks,

Dave

[vsdoug]

On the server, are you using passwords have you set up the passwords to the database so that they will not disconnect from the server on idle?

I have a version 5 server running on a Macintosh and serving to clients over an TCP/IP connection (spread throughout the local geographic region). I have only one location that complains of being disconnected whether idle or actively using the databases. I suspect it's a flakey Internet connection, but our network tests have come up negative.

[Dave Dunlap]

FileMaker server 5 is running on Windows NT. The users have to enter a password to connect to the Applicaton but I don't know for sure if it's a FileMaker password or an "application" password.

I don't recall seeing a dialog box similar to your screen shot in the Server configuration stuff but I do believe that there is a Disconnect when Idle setting and I think it's NOT checked. But I will verify to make sure.

Any other thoughts?

Thanks!

Dave Dunlap

[stanley]

Another thing to consider is that screen savers sometimes cause network blips and hiccups, although that seems mostly to happen on the Mac.

-Stanley

[Dave Dunlap]

Stanley,

Thanks, I didn't think of that.

Have you seen this at all with Windows clients or only on the Mac?

I'll suggest that they turn them off anyway and see if it helps.

Dave

[Fred777]

We had something similiar, it had to do with the server user permissions (the login for the server), they were set to high (too limited). I know Im vague but I didnt do the repair myself.