Can't get into my database

[Emma in England]

Last week I started developing a 'multi-user' version of a working database. I started from a copy of my working one, so assume all user account details would remain the same?

On Friday I was hosting it on my Mac under my user name and password 'admin' , as usual. I was also loading it from a PC under another user name and password.

Today, I can't open it on either machine, using either account. I have to assume I've done something stupid, but I can't see what. I guess a day's work is lost and I must start over and WRITE EVERYTHING DOWN, but I honestly don't think I've forgotten the passwords as I always use the same ones.

Could anything else have happened (other than me being stupid) to mess up my access? I can't even get in as a Guest, which I thought would be available by default.

[Robert Kidd]

What message are you getting ?

"The Account and Password you entered cannot be used to access this file. Please try again."

Means your username (& maybe password) is wrong

"The account name and password you entered does not match does not match for any Filemaker account."

Means you password alone is wrong.

Don't forget the password is case sensitive (username isn't).

[Emma in England]

It's 'account AND password'. Even with 'Admin'. The only other name I'd use is emma.glaisher, and it doesn't recognise that as an account either. Or the account name that was (and still is) set up on the PC, and which accessed it 4 days ago.

Can something have happened to the file? This sort of thing is usually me being stupid, but I really don't think it is this time...

[Robert Kidd]

If you have access to passware it can confirm the account names in the files. Sometimes that's enough to remind you that you've changed something ! It can also reset the passwords so you wouldn't lose anything you've done.

[Emma in England]

Is passware an application or a type of application? Is it downloadable anywhere? I don't think we have anything like that.

[Emma in England]

Sorry, googled it and answered own question... might take some looking for, but maybe I'll find a demo to get me out of this one!

[Robert Kidd]

http://www.lostpassword.com/filemaker.htm

I see there is a demo which recovers the username but not the whole password which might be worth a shot, otherwise it's $45.

[Emma in England]

Yes, that was my first hit - but it's a PC app and I need a Mac one! I'm having to work on something else right now (unfortunately I'm not paid as a FM developer!), but I'll see if I can find something tomorrow. Thanks for the suggestion, I didn't know there was such software out there!

[Robert Kidd]

If your files don't contain confidential data you could email them to me and I could reset the passwords for you.( email address in my profile )

[Steven H. Blackwell]

[color:red]Uh Oh. Lots of trouble brewing here. First off, Passware doesn't reset Account names and passwords. it totally destroys the block of the file where the hashes were written originally and then replaces it with a hash Passware created. it is not safe to continue to use files that were hacked in this method.

First, try just an Account Name of Admin with no password and see what that does. That's the FileMaker created default. Second, try that by first holding down the Option or Shift key to force the password dialog to appear. This overrrides anything that might have been set as the auto-enter credentials.

Steven

[Emma in England]

Thanks for the advice Steven - it turned out the file is damaged in some way (the first time I've experienced this with Filemaker, though I only use it sporadically). It won't recover, so I must start again. This isn't the end of the world and will probably force me to do it better. Only lost a day's work!

My worry was that I'd somehow misunderstood setting up the accounts, so I'm glad it wasn't that.

[Steven H. Blackwell]

Can you say "Frequent backups?"

Sorry to hear the file is damaged.

Steven

[Robert Kidd]

I didn't realise Passware was quite so destructive in it's methods! I guess it would have been ok to import the data, scripts etc out of the hacked version into an earlier backup.

[Steven H. Blackwell]

I guess it would have been ok to import the data, scripts etc out of the hacked version into an earlier backup.

Copy the scripts rather than import them. And then check for errors.

Steven