Disappearance of Data, but not Records

[Andy Robo]

Hi all :

I have a school-based FM7 DB served using FMS 7 on an xServe to Mac clients (some thru hardwire connections, some thru wireless).

PROBLEM:

Twice in the last two weeks all the visible fields in all the records in the "students courses" table have lost their data - the records are still there, but all the data has disappeared - text, graphics... everything.

***student courses RELATED TO student details through unique Student ID***

Now this database has been running on this server for almost 3 years without this happening... altho I seem to remember a similar problem back in 2004 when I first built it.

You can create new records and any new data appears fine.

The blank records still appear in related portals - so somehow the relationship still works

I am pretty confident with my security... altho I am not an expert so cannot automatically dismiss a student mucking around in the DB. And anyway that wouldn't explain why only one table has been targeted.

We backup everyday and we've gone to back ups on both occasions - the last worked for two weeks and - bang - all data gone again.

Any ideas???

Andrew

[gdurniak]

FM7 was, and is, the worst of all versions. It would be best to upgrade to FM8

Data lost & missing is just one of many nasty problems reported

File or Index corruption is also possible. See here

http://nyfmp.org/1/57

[Andy Robo]

Thanks Gregory

I've rebuilt for FM8, but am just waiting on them to purchase software etc.

I just find it strange that it should run for so long without incident, and then twice in two weeks exhibit the exact same problem.

And Filemaker gives no hint that anything is wrong!!! There's no corrupt file message etc.

[Genx]

It is likely data corruption from something like a power outage. Check the logs on your server.