Scenario:

Problem: I've got a database (Job Diaries)that is used to record progress on our projects. It has about 8 fields that must be filled in (date, author, who there, body...)There is a script that sends an email to people chosen from check boxes using SMTPit. Has worked great for years. Just noticed that a record can be created, the email script can be run and then the record vanishes from the database. THis doesn't happen all the time.

Theory: It never gets committed from the client to the server.

Conundrum: I thought that upon exiting a field the data is committed. However, the new "commit record" step in scripting implies a need to force that to happen.

Working on my assumption I'm going to put the commit record step into as many scripts as I can find that would be relevant.

I'm hoping some wise and learned member of this forum could shed some light on this issue.

Thanks in advance.

Just in case you haven't found these yet, here are two relevant links for the topic:

Extensive discussion on Commit Records

Another discussion

The commit records script step does not directly cause the server to write the record to disk. It does do a commit on the local temp copy of the file on the workstation.

You should close all files, then stop all FMS services. Open the files in Pro and save a compacted copy of them. Use that copy. You may be starting to see some problems with indices.

Steven

OK, well I've been reading about the record commit process as suggested above.

Steve, you response is disconcerting. If the commit only writes to the workstation, is the record still locked? At what point does the server get updated? Or, are you saying that as data is entered in each field the server should be getting written to and since it's not, I've got the issues you hypothesize?

Thanks!

Steve wrote: "The commit records script step does not directly cause the server to write the record to disk."

Bavl wrote: "At what point does the server get updated?"

The record doesn't have to be written to disk for it to be updated on the server. I assume that FM Server does as much as it can in RAM to maximise performance; the updated data would be in the server RAM cache, it'll write it to disk (a relatively slow operation) when it either needs to or when it's idle.

FileMaker Server continuously is in communication with its clients, especially FileMaker Pro. As Vaughan points out, the record commit on the server is an on-going process. My original answer was intended to point out that the commit step does not necessarily immediately trigger that action.

You have something abnormal going on with your system here. Does this same problem occur from other workstations as well, or only from one? I recommended that you repair the indices of your files, because this situation sounds like it could be a possible index corruption problem.

Steven