I need help diagnosing the following error which appears using FM 5.5 while accessing a multi-user database which resides on a server. Users open their desktop FM 5.5 (Windows XP or W2K), then do a File Open.

Although this is not recommended practice (file on server, application on desktop), this is what I have with my users.

Only one user gets this message:

Sorry. Filemaker is unable to update the disk this file is on. Click continue to try again, or click Exit and copy this file to another disk.

Anybody have any ideas?

Thanks.

[email protected]

Just a guess, but probably the server has granted the first user read/write privileges, and subsequent users have read-only access. Since all Filemaker clients need read/write access, it's giving an error message to the subsequent users. It's a good thing. If all clients were given read/write access, the file would be quickly corrupted. That is why you are not supposed to serve a file this way.

Dennis:

Welcome to the Forums.

That sounds like a permissions issue to me. Regardless of what's happening, you should never allow multiple users direct os-level access to a database file. If your files aren't corrupt already, they will be soon. You should have a copy of FMP running on your server, with the files open. Users should access the files via Open Remote, and the folder containing your files should have permissions set so that networked users have no direct access. Not only will this preserve your data, you will no longer have os-level connectivity issues, such as what you're seeing, as FMP has its own os-independent networking system.

-Stanley