Browsers Hanging on Form Submission (FMP6 UnLtd)

[wubfur]

Ever since updating our Filemaker solutions from FMP 4.1 + Lasso 2.5 (runnning under OS 9 & WebSTAR 4) to FMP 6 UnLtd (running under OS X 10.3 & WebSTAR V), we have been plagued by a problem where (some) web browsers hang when submitting forms. Maddeningly, the problem doesn't happen all the time, and doesn't seem to follow any pattern we can discern. It does seem to happen more frequently in Safari & IE for Mac, but will sometimes occur when using Mozilla-based browsers or IE for Windows. It seems to occur more frequently with forms which create a new record than with forms which edit an existing record, but can occur with either. It also seems more frequent with complex forms, but can sometimes occur even with really simple forms (10 or so text fields, nothing fancy whatsoever).

Currently, I'm attempting to get a survey form to work and having no luck at all getting around this problem. If anyone would care to have a look, the form is here .

Any suggestions will be GREATLY appreciated as i am just about at wit's end with this and my clients are about ready to ditch Filemaker alltogether.

[Garry Claridge]

Make sure you have the latest updates for FM 6 Unlimited.

Good Luck.

Garry

[Tricouni]

Just a thought, but can you get by hard coding your input values in HTML right on the page rather than use your value lists? I have a sense this may lighten the work that "Meeting_Survey_2005.fp5" has to do...

[Garry Claridge]

"Hard-coding" html input values shoud work.

Good Luck.

Garry

[wubfur]

It's interesting that 2 people have suggested "hard-coding" the input values because my experience with Filemaker 6 has been the opposite. That is, with Filemaker 4.1 & Lasso 2.5 I used to hard code most of the values for radio buttons, checkboxes, and pulldown menus, but since upgrading to FMP 6 (and ditching Lasso) I've found that hard-coding values often seemed to lead to problems, so I've switched to using "[FMP-ValueList]" tags.

For the moment, I've worked around the browser hanging problem by taking WebSTAR & the "Filemaker Web Server Connector" out of the loop and sending users straight to Filemaker's built-in webserver (which I have running on port 591). This seems to have (mostly?) eliminated the hanging.

Thanks for the suggestions though. I may take another look at hard coding values next time I need to do a new database.

[Tricouni]

Sounds like you found the problem I have one box running both WebStar and FMU 6. On that I hand off the FM stuff to FM via port 591 and use WebStar (port 80) for all the non FM stuff...this seems to work well except for those few places where the user's network admin has firewall rules that do not permit access via port 591.

I think the obvious efficiencies that [FMP-ValueList] provides (depending on how dynamic your page content needs to be) is definitely worth getting to work....I have one app where teachers submit tests (questions and answers) (for their students to later (like the next day!) take online), and entering all their questions and answers into just FM saves a lot of coding on the web pages....for the few surveys I do though, I just code the questions and answers on the web page.