solutions wanted Disappearing field information

[printz]

I have a database that lists Cruise Lines as a drop down value list. When I select a particular cruise line, all the ships for that cruise line appear in a field for ship names. When I select the ship name from the value list, it appears as the input in that field.

Now, the problem. The ship name for all the records in the database disappear and becomes blank sometime further down the road. I cannot find the trigger that causes the information to disappear.

Does anyone have any idea where I can look to correct this problem? Thank you in advance.

[Oldfogey]

Do you mean all of the ship names or just all cases of a particular ship name? I'd be surprised if your problem is related directly to what you've described. Look elsewhere in your solution.

FWIW, I have had a vaguely similar thing happen.

Someone used a child field on a basic working layout. i.e. Master::Name

Some other one, just blanked that field on the layout. Bingo! that Name in the Master is no longer there and any other records looking it up show a blank. (I inherited a DB where child fields were used quite a bit in this way. The blanks were easy; it was the changes that caused havoc, until I fixed them all.)

[printz]

All of the ship names disappear from every record. I have it set up so the Cruise Line field is a drop down from a value list. Then depending on the Cruise Line selected, only the Ships for that cruise line appear for selection in the Ship Name field. This was created by using a value list and Include only related records starting from Cruise Line.

Everything looks just fine, then maybe a day or two later, for some unknown reason, all the ship names in every record disappear. The Cruise Line fields are still there.

I hope that clears things up a bit. Does that qualify for a Child FIeld? I am not familiar with that term.

[David McQueen]

I do not think that your initial record formation routine is the problem here. The values stick around for awhile and then disappear. They probably just would not stick in the first place if it was at that part of the program.

Take a look at your reporting. Some times there is a lot of processing going on to get a report out. Somewhere in that processing may be an errant script step that is deleting the values.

If it was sets of records disappearing and there were related fields there, I would suspect a cascading delete in action.

Good luck

Dave McQueen

[Genx]

Ive had issues with unstored calcs... where they wouldn't calculate properly and a field value had to be re-entered (one of the fields used in the calculation in one record on that table).. Only if the app was closed then re-opened - calcs would blank. Very strange... But still, i've never had actual data blank out?

[Oldfogey]

Printz,

"I hope that clears things up a bit. Does that qualify for a Child FIeld? I am not familiar with that term. " Yes it does. (Don't pick on me Soren!) A child field is effectively a field referenced via a relationship. From your description, that does not appear to be the problem.

As someone else suggested, you are probably emptying the field somewhere else. Check all of your scripts. Do you have a field anywhere with a similar name?

[printz]

I have reviewed all my scripts and cannot locate anything that could possibly delete just the ship names.

In regards to David McQueen, could you explain a little more in detail your comment "Take a look at your reporting. Some times there is a lot of processing going on to get a report out. Somewhere in that processing may be an errant script step that is deleting the values."

Maybe that would give me a little insight.

Thanks everyone for your help.

[Oldfogey]

Is the file networked? Do others play with the data? If so, do they know what they're doing?

Do you do any (scripted) finds for empty ship names?

Has the data really gone? A carriage return added at the front of the data works wonders; the data 'disappears'.

I have had the text colour change to white for no apparent reason. (No, I didn't believe it either but it happened.)

Do you re-enter all of the missing data?

How about putting in a calc field to get a timestamp when the data vanishes? It might point you somewhere.