Hello.

My office just upgraded everyone to FileMaker 8. I have the least amount FM experience here but I've been given the job of getting it up and running right.

Thing is, there's something about the sharing I can't figure out. Theoretically five of us should be able to open a file at once. However, only once was I able to get more than one computer to open the same file at the same time - then it stopped working.

I get this error message:

"[filename] could not be opened. The host’s capacity was exceeded, try again later."

Yet so far as I can tell the Network Sharing settings are all fine on the host's machine.

Anyone know what the problem is?

Do you have the FileMaker Solution on the same hard drive as the host computer? Is the solution always running on the host machine? To clients access the solution using the Open Remote menu item? Is file sharing turned off on the host machine so people can't connect to except through Open Remote?

Thanks a lot for replying, JMO. I'll answer your questions:

Do you have the FileMaker Solution on the same hard drive as the host computer? YES

Is the solution always running on the host machine? YES.

Do clients access the solution using the Open Remote menu item? YES.

Is file sharing turned off on the host machine so people can't connect to except through Open Remote? NOT SURE.

That last one I'm not sure about - do you mean I should have file and printer sharing in Windows disableed for FMP8 sharing to work? If so, I can't really do that - at least, not now, as that host machine holds other documents that need be shared on the network. Is there a workaround to this?

File sharing won't prevent you from sharing your files but it will stop people from logging on to the solution without using the Open Remote option. Also, file sharing is widely known to cause problems with FileMaker sharing. The worse scenario is crashing the solution and corrupting your files. Ideally, a FileMaker host should have nothing else running on it but FileMaker.

These are the standard reasons why you would get the message you are reporting without actually exceeding the 5 concurrent user capacity. Are you sure you have 5 unique serial numbers for the installed clients? FileMaker checks over the network for any other copies with same serial number. You also might want to restart your host computer to see if that helps. Also, make sure you have 8.0v3 on every computer. It's a free download for the Updater:

http://www.filemaker.com/support/downloads/index.html

Is this a single file or a group of related files?

If you're trying to access the file through the OS level file sharing, i.e. mapped drives, network neighborhood, and so forth, then you may get the message you received or a similar one.

Peer to peer sharing is notoriously underpowered and often somewhat flaky.

Steven

Ahhhh I finally figured it out. The tard they got to install it here just used the same serial for everyone. Reinstalled it myself on every computer using the different serials and now it's sharing just fine. Anyway thanks for helping me out and cluing me in on that possibility, folks.

just used the same serial for everyone

You can do this with a volume license code only .

Steven