Corrupt table

[eswanborg]

I recently created a v7 file for a client with several tables - Inventory, Clients, Invoices, etc. They've spent time inputting all the data for the Inventory (their most important table). Two days ago while using the file, FM Unexpecttedly Quit on them. Now, all the data (except for one record) is apparently gone - so it seems.

When the file opens it shows 447 records in the Inventory. However, all but one record appear to be empty. All of the "blank" records lock me out from selecting any fields - as if they were locked. I can't see or enter any information into any of those records.

Some of the other tables contain related records that have information from the Inventory. So I can see what some of the Inventory numbers were (for instance) and those other tables appear to be working fine. If I go back to the Inventory table and search for one of those numbers, FMP appears to find it, but again it's "blank" onscreen.

Deep down I feel pretty confident that this file is gone for good. I've tried a few of the Recovery methods posted here with no success. When I "Recover" a file, I wind up with just the single record that still shows in the corrupt file (so 1 record instead of 447). When I export a Merge or Text file, again just one record has any data in it.

The puzzling part to me is how I can search and in theory find a record, but it displays no information. Also, the file is still nearly 200 MB (has lots of Inventory photos embedded - reference images weren't working in their networked environment). So I feel like the data is there someplace, but just not accessible for some reason.

I'm relatively new to this, so if anyone has a suggestion I'm open to try anything. Sorry for the long post, but I wanted to get as much info into this as I could. It's not the complete end of the world, as they just started to use this, but I want to try everything possible before telling them they've lost 2 weeks of data entry.

Thanks for any help you can provide.

eric

Edited August 11, 2005 by Guest

[Reed]

2 weeks of data entry with no backups? ouch.

So can you see the data in the corrupt table from the related records, or just the related key value?

What if you go to one of the "bad" records and try to duplicate it? Is the new record visible. If you create a completely new record, is that one visible? Finally, to rule out a corrupt layout or table ocurrence, try creating a new layout based on a new table ocurrence, and see if there's any difference.

Even if you are able to get the data back from this file somehow, it goes without saying that you should import the data into a "clean" clone of the file that has never crashed.

[eswanborg]

Reed - thanks for the suggestions.

Duplicating Record - fails - won't let me duplicate a record

New Record - works - can create new record and move on like nothing is wrong

New Layout - fails - I can create a new table occurrence and a new Layout, however none of the data from the table shows in the new Layout. Only the one record that still has data visible in the "broken" layout shows. No difference.

Thanks for the suggestions though. Yes, bummer that it wasn't backed up. Their back-up program was not looking to this machine as it ran weekly.... Yikes.

[eswanborg]

I don't think this impacts anything, but if I run any of the scripts that involve this table I get the following error:

446 records could not be modified because they were in use by other users or your priviledges do not allow you to change them.

That correponds with the impression I had that it wasn't really letting me select any of the fields. Just thought maybe this might make a difference to someone....

Thanks

[Reed]

Are you sure you're opening the file with an account that has the [Full Access] privilege set? If you can open the define database and define accounts and privileges dialogs, then you must be... If you can, try creating a new account with the full access privilege set. Or even creating a new privilege set that allows full access to that table and all fields and records. See if that account can see the missing records.

For backups... are you running (or will you be) filemaker server? If so you can set up scheduled backups. If you're just using the file locally, you should create copies using the save a copy... command. You shouldn't create backups by simply copying the file with the OS if the file is opened in FMP at the time. This could lead to corruption.

You could set up a script that saves a copy each time you open the file, then just run a cron job that makes a timestamped zip archive of the file on another disk (or more than one disk) or even better, on a networked file server that's somewhere off site.

[Ano Nimus]

How's this for a long shot? Create a clone of the file, then open that clone and directly import the data from the afflicted fp7 file. Not likely the solution, but you never know.

[Perry Degner]

OK, this is weird. I've got the same problem happening with a client of mine. I have tried exporting records, but those records appear blank as well. I can perform a find that returns the appropriate records, but they appear blank as well. The only record that appears normal is the record that was being modified when the Filemaker crashed. In addition to this, when I use the recover command, it removes all the records except for the one record that was being modified and appears normal.

This is a big problem, and apparently a common one.

A fix has to be out there. Any ideas?

[Reed]

This is a big problem, and apparently a common one.

A fix has to be out there. Any ideas?

Don't crash the database

There's really no good fix for a file that's been crashed... the only thing you can do is have a good backup strategy so you can minimize the potential for data loss. Not only from application crashes, but also from power failures, hard disk failures, etc.

[eswanborg]

How's this for a long shot? Create a clone of the file, then open that clone and directly import the data from the afflicted fp7 file. Not likely the solution, but you never know.

Thanks for the Suggestion Ano - unfortunately no luck.

Perry - happy/sad to hear that you've experienced the same problem. Sorry for you that it happened, but glad (sort of) to hear that I'm not the only one that this has happened to. I might shell out the $100 and see what FM Recovery Services can do with the file.... just out of curiosity

Thanks to everyone for the help - not going to worry too much more about this file, I think it's out of my control now.