I have a database that was updated from, ahem, FileMaker 4 to FileMaker 8. The upgrade seemed to go fine. However, one of my users has just encountered an odd behaviour in Find mode. There is a field that is set to display as a drop-down menu containing values from a Value List. She is trying to find all records that have a specific value in this particular field. When she does the Find, she gets the results that no records match the request. However, I *know* there are records that have the particular value in that field. In fact, 727 records out of 4350 have that value. If I select "Find Matching Records..." on a record that has this value in this field, I find all of the matching records. If I select Find, then choose the value from the list, I find no records.

Any suggestions as to what's going on here?

Assuming that choosing a value from the value list is actually dropping that value into the field then the obvious (but somewhat unlikely) answer to your question is that the values in the value list do not match the apparently same values in the field. Have you redefined the Value List since the update? Is the VL defined by the values of the field you are searching or by some other field? If they are not defined by the field you are searching it might be worth defining a new VL from that field's values and see if that gives you the same problem.

Well, I tried creating a copy of the field on the same layout, only setting it to be an Edit Box instead of drop down. Typing in the value I want to find doesn't work, though Find Matching does...

It seems that maybe the information stored in the field is causing problems. If I type in a portion of the data, the find seems to work. The data contains a "#" sign, though, and it seems like if I type in the "#" sign or any characters after it, the search fails to find any results.

The # sign is a wildcard and stands for any digit. In order to find a # you have to look for #

Hmmm.... if that's the case, I wonder why the Find won't work. Unless the wildcard "#" can't be the "#" symbol itself. Here's the text that's being searched for:

2006 Furn. Catalog #0024280

Searching for that string by choosing it from a drop-down menu does not work. Searching for it by typing it and surrounding it in quotes does work.

The wildcard "#" is looking for a digit at the position of the wildcard.

If you had records with "2006 Furn. Catalog 10024280" or "2006 Furn. Catalog 20024280", then 2006 Furn. Catalog #0024280 would find those.