here is a little demostration that shows how a record is before ur very eyes, and cannot be found!~

ok here is what u do in the program

1. enter a record in [style Details], this is the thing that u want to order.

2. press the "Order" button, which will generate an order form for you. and now u see in [style Details] that shows the order number it is being ordered.

3. now sometime later things happen, and u have to cancel the order. so u go to [Order Form], and press "Delete", the computer deletes the entire order, and then it tries to set those styles that holds the particular order number to nothing, so u wont have any styles that has an order number that cannot be found.

but... guess what... even though in your [style Details] window it shows that the particular style that has the same order number as the one u just deleted... but the computer just wont be able to find the matching record in style details...

u check the global field, ya it is storing the Order number that u just deleted... u check the script... ya everything is right... linear and logical...

no trick in tables at all... and no trick in fields~ what's going on... some ghosts are preventing the record from being found??... FM7 can't find it hahahha.....

p.s. to see more precicely that the record, "gets eaten by ghost during find", use the "Delete" button, then when FM tells u that it cant find the record, press "Cancel". Then go to browse mode. u will see the record right there. Then manually go into Find Mode in the same window, manually type in the Order Number and try to find it ...then u will see... it got eaten~~~

ghost.zip

Deep thought: I'm not actually understanding your experiment (it's a bit hard for me to follow your description, and also something seems structurally wrong. I don't understand why a Styles table should have an order number as a field; it seems you're using the Styles table to hold values for the Line Items/Order Details table?).

Anyway, I believe your observation here may be related to the problems I recently had with records created via portal. Basically, it seems FM7 doesn't necessarily commit records in certain situations (especially when created via a relation); yet they appear in browse mode anyway. When they're not yet committed, they can't be found and they are liable to disappearing.

I'm willing to bet that if you close and open your database, the "ghost" records are no longer there, in browse mode or any other...

If you add a "commit record" step (after "New record" and before "close window") to your new order script, perhaps things will work better?

Hi,

You can't modify a record as it is used in another opened window.

In your Delete script, add a 'Close Window' step right after the 'Delete Record' step.

I'm not sure the 'Commit Record' is actually necessary in that script, but it surely doesn't hurt.

yes, my experiment shows that, u have to close the 'Style Details' window which is currently browsing the record in order to "find" that record.

this is a rather odd observation, i know. but Filemaker 7 just does that. it frustrated me for almost 2 hours just to experiment with different windows~

i mean, it at least has to be able to find it, and tell u it can't modify it just like what happens if u press "Delete - Find/Replace method"....

haha... in the end i think i'll just humor with a small program :-)

yes, the sneaky comit records strikes again!

I was having troubles with this myself until i figured out the comit record. i'll consider the close window too.