data corruption

[curious99]

Hi, I've got data corruption on a large file. I started the file in 1989. When I script a search for a date field, it brings me febuary insteat of november. I recovered the file with the recover tool in FM 6.0 and it brought me the following result :2 field values ignored. I tried my search script after recovery but it still does not bring the correct result? What should I do. Should I keep the pre recovered file instead of the recovered one( back in older versions, I know it was not recommended at all to use recovery except for last resort situations which is not my case right now although I would love this problem to go away). Would a migration to filemaker 8.0 weed out the problem?

[gdurniak]

Strange "find" results often mean a messed up index. Try exporting all data fields (text, date, number, time) to a "merge" file, then re-import into a pre-recover clone

for more detailed info, see my post here:

http://masdevelopment.com:3455/1/57?view=print

[curious99]

Isn't this the achiles heel of filemaker pro...I find it very annoying and feel completely helpless. Are other databases softwares also such ill equiped to help us maintain data integrity?

[Wim Decorte]

Yes and no. You should also understand the purpose of the tools that *are* provided. The Recover tool is not a repair tool. The purpose of recovery is to get file back working long enough for you to export the data and import it into a known good backup of your file. All the while realizing that the recovery may in fact have deleted parts of your data it thought are corrupt.

Recovery will delete any and all parts of your file (field definitions, scripts, layouts, accounts,...) in order to preserve as much of the data as possible.

[curious99]

Hi,

Thanks for the reply.

What I meant is more to the tune of having a tool or command that would, like the document mentionned by gdurniak in the first reply that I got : 1- a "verify" utility, to identify files that are corrupted; 2- An improved "save as clone" feature, with an option to verify the structure, instead of just truncating the tables and 3- a tool or script that would export in the right text format and re import it after the save as a clone has been done.

With these tools, we could feel better equiped. It is hard to believe that a company that sells millions of copies of a software would not be compelled to support us better in this crutial area.

Hope it makes more sense.