FM Server 7 more stable than 5.5?

[Chris Vancil]

We are hosting about 15 files under FM Server 5.5 running on OS 10.3.9 and have been experiencing severe corruption on 5 of the files. It seems to occur when the server is restarted.

Has anyone seen similar corruption and upgraded to 7? Is the rate of corrpution under 7 lower than 5.5?

[gdurniak]

FMS5.5 should work. A few notes:

1. you must have the latest 5.5 version / updater

2. did it ever work? did you upgrade the OS?

3. FM7 has it's own quirks, so upgrade may not help

4. the files might harbor corruption. Try hosting an older set of backup files

5. see also Tech Info Answer 1028: http://filemaker.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/filemaker.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=1028&p_created=1115172490&p_sid=fBCtLVOh&p_lva=1100&p_sp=cF9zcmNoPTEmcF9zb3J0X2J5PSZwX2dyaWRzb3J0PSZwX3Jvd19jbnQ9MTYmcF9wcm9kcz0wJnBfY2F0cz0mcF9wdj0mcF9jdj0mcF9zZWFyY2hfdHlwZT1hbnN3ZXJzLnNlYXJjaF9ubCZwX3BhZ2U9MSZwX3NlYXJjaF90ZXh0PXNlcnZlciByZXN0YXJ0IG9zIHg*&p_li=&p_topview=1

[LiveOak]

Here is some data on the subject that was found online by one of my associates:

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Apr. 12, 2005

Data Loss And Corruption

Peter Trist

In your followup Kim Kohen mentioned experiencing problems with FMS 5.5 under OS X. As a FileMaker developer who shares responsibility for the smooth and reliable running of ~20 FMS [5.5] units around the country (Australia) we have found the following to be the best an most reliable setup.

The Filemaker Server folder / application should 'live' in the default 'Application' Folder - no where else. Regardless of this, its priviledges must be set to drwxrwxrwx (777) or in layman's terms read/write/execute for Owner/ & Group & Others.

The 'data' folder can 'live' in the FMS Folder or anywhere on the SAME computer. If not in the FMS folder place an alias to the data files [NOT a symbolic link] in the FMS folder. Again, privledges are very important for this folder - they should be the same as those detailed above for the server folder.

The 1st level 'backup' folder should live on the SAME computer, preferably on a 2nd hard drive, but at the very least on a different partition to that of the OS and or data folder. Privledges on this folder MUST be set as above or you WILL get intermittent FMS server run auto-backup results.

From this 1st level backup folder make additional backups anywhere else you like using the backup software of your choice.

Notes:

I don't know why not doing it this way sometimes 'breaks' the backups, but it does, sooner or later. If for some reason you have to reset the backups;

DELETE them ALL from within the FileMaker Server Schedule window.

Quit FileMaker Server.

Remove & Delete the file

~/Library/Preferences/com.filemaker.filemakerpro.plist

Restart FileMaker Server

Recreate the backup schedule

Once again I am not sure why, or even if, ALL these steps are required, but I do know that if they are followed I have yet to fail to have reliable backups via FMS.

Hope this is of help to others - we spent a LOT of hours of trial & error working this out.

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HTH

-bd