Hi all,

I want to add some fields to an existing database of ours. When I go into the client and do: File, Define Fields. I get the following error: "The command cannot be used with a shared file. To use this command, make sure that you are the only user of "MainMenu".

Filemaker the program is not current installed on our server (at least i dont think so) its just the services that are on there. Do I need to install it on the server and run it from there?

Thanks in advance

Hi all,

I want to add some fields to an existing database of ours. When I go into the client and do: File, Define Fields. I get the following error: "The command cannot be used with a shared file. To use this command, make sure that you are the only user of "MainMenu".

Filemaker the program is not current installed on our server (at least i dont think so) its just the services that are on there. Do I need to install it on the server and run it from there?

Thanks in advance

no. it just means that you must be the only user of the file to add fields. If it is a shared database, ask others to close their open file. If you are the only user, there is another possible problem, but I can't remember it off hand.

When you talk about your "server" you seem to imply that there is some relationship between your server and sharing a filemaker pro database. This is *not the case though! Even when you run FileMaker Pro on a "client" the filemaker program exposes built in database sharing capabilities to other computers on the network. If you or another user has given the database in question either "shared" or "shared (hidden)" status (depending on os preferences > document > sharing) then it is possible other users are connected to the database. FileMaker won't allow you to define fields when other users are connected. Moving the db to another client or server won't change this at all since FileMaker (even FileMaker Server) doesn't really differentiate between clients and servers, it only sees "hosts."

All of this will be nonesense if you are *sure you really are the only user. In any case, you can change the db status to single user. This might work if you think you are receiving the alert about not being the only user in error. Other workarounds might include changing the db to single user mode, saving a copy and attempting to define additional fields in the copy and, of course, resaving over the previous db.

Let us know how this goes,

JR Bernal