Am I missing something?

I am trying to share between 2 Macs, one running FM Pro 8.0, the other FM Pro Advanced 8.5.

If I open the DB under 8.0 and enable network sharing, there is no problem accessing the DB from the other Mac under Advanced 8.5.

However, if I open the DB under 8.5 Advanced and enable network sharing, I keep getting the error message "host capacity exceeded." No other differences I can see.

Does Advanced NOT support sharing? Is there something special which needs to be set in Advanced to enable the same sharing available in regular Pro?

Hi Graham, welcome to the forums.

1) Check that you are updated to the most recent version

2) The limit of sharing in peer 2 peer is one file only. Sometimes for some unknown reason FileMaker will get confused, I myself experienced this problem earlier -- the only solution i could find was using an earlier backup.

I suggest you try to share a very basic file (perhaps one of the FM sample files) and see if that works first and then come back to us with the results.

Thanks for the prompt response.

FM Pro Advanced 8.5v1 and 8.0v3 are the latest I could find.

Problem exists for any file. I created a new DB with 1 table, 2 fields, and 2 records and got the same "host's capacity was exceeded" message! No problem finding the DB remotely, but can't open.

I've tried increasing FM cache size to no avail.

Other thoughts?

Re-install?

.. Hold on, Are you hosting on the other computer and trying to get to the file, or simply trying to host on the advanced computer?

Not sure of your last question, but more testing provides another clue.

Computer A has Advanced 8.5; Computer B has regular 8.0. Open FM Advanced on A, turn on network sharing, try to open remotely from B and get error message.

Move DB to Computer B, open with regular 8.0, turn on network sharing, try to open remotely from B and it works OK. [Always turn off network sharing before next test.]

Next I tried opening DB on A with regular 8.0, turn on network sharing, try to open remotely from B with regular 8.0 and it works OK! This implies network settings are all OK and problem is with Advanced 8.5. According to docs, sharing should work on Advanced as well as regular.

Computer A has Advanced 8.5; Computer B has regular 8.0. Open FM Advanced on A, turn on network sharing, try to open remotely from B and get error message.

I wonder ... Vs. 8.0 can NOT read 8.5 but 8.5 CAN read 8.0? Can ANY program be forward compatible? I would host with 8.0 instead. I may be wrong here ... we're not 8.5 yet but it might explain your problem and seems logical to me. These programs can be used in conjunction as long as no 8.5 features are USED. This also might be the trip-up but I suspect forward-compatibility issue instead.

More testing now leads me to believe that there's a problem with 8.5 itself, or some setting/preference which needs to be changed.

I tried 8.5 Advanced on Mac A and 8.5 Regular on Mac B. Neither could open any DBs on the other using Network Sharing. Even the simplest DB gave the "exceed host's capacity" when attempting to open remotely. I'm guessing something has changed from 8.0 to 8.5 related to sharing, but so far no clues.

Same DBs have no problem sharing in both directions using 8.0.

Has anyone successfully used Network Sharing with FileMaker Pro 8.5? I can share fine with 8.0 but none of the upgrades to 8.5 can successfully host DBs.

A bit late and I can't offer any explanations but for what it's worth, I have downloaded the trial v8.5 and temporarily using it to host my business database with 2 colleagues running v.7. The database comprises over 20 files and it's working fine.

There may also be a trial version of Server still available for you to test as well.

Steven