Records disappearing ...

[crnaovca]

So, my problem is following. I made program that is running from start of 2005 without problem. Few months ago something happened and records started to disappear... Main table is ok ... then related record moves to another record of main record ... and they are joined together with one to many relationship over primary key ... so ... main table records stay stable, related redords disappear or just "move????"... IS there any way I can find those missing records? Or to reconnect them? I tried compact .. but nothing happened ...

PLEASE HELP MEEEE!!

[Søren Dyhr]

Are your primary key based on a calculation? Nothing but autoenter serail numberfields can ensure total integrity!

--sd

[crnaovca]

database is pretty simple. I am verinarian, so I have made little database of clients. It is one to many relationship, owners of pets, then pets, then visits to ambulance.

3 tables in vertical hierarchy. everything is with autoserial ... but records were disappeiring, or they were moved ... for example lets say Jon has a pet called Husky, when I open Jon, husky is not there, but when I find husky and open it it says, that Jon is the owner ... OR husky disappeared, OR it has moved to completely new owner. After that, I have created that same program from scratch. But now, even though husky is there, records about visits are empty. I enter something in it, go back, work for a while and after few days I am trying to find what happened, and all records are gone. It is empty .. :?

I can even send you that file ... I really don't know what to do ... all my patients are dissapearing. I curse filemaker ...

Please help ...

[crnaovca]

O yes ... this could be important. Program is 9MB big. but after I have made it from scratch it was just 3 MB big. I don't have so many patients that it should be so much bigger in few months.

[LaRetta]

Save an empty clone of your file (File > Save As 'Clone with no records') and attach it here (zip it first).

We can look and see what is happening. Hang in there.

[crnaovca]

Here it is ...

It is in croatian language ... I can do a quick translation if you want ...

program.zip

[crnaovca]

Table vlasnici = owners

table ljubimci = pets

Table karotni = visit records

Table owners is top table ...

[LaRetta]

Okay, your structure between these three tables is fine. There is one vlasnici for many pets. One pet for many visits. And you are using auto-enter serials and you are using them properly, placing the ownersID into pets as foreign key etc. on down the line.

And when I create a new owner and then click into your ljubinci (pets) portal, it creates Husky. Then when I go to Husky's layout and add a Karotni (visit), it adds it fine.

I am reattaching the file and see if it looks right to you. I may not be looking at the exact problem so let us know if I missed it, okay?

LaRetta

program2.zip

[LaRetta]

When you add a pet, do you use the portal below on the owner record? Or do you go to the pet layout and use either the FM menu ADD or click the add button there? Because if you don't use the portal, that New Record button in the Pets layout doesn't know the Owner. And I see no place to add the owner from there. Am I missing it? Same with Visits - how do you specify the pet if you don't use the visit's portal on the pet layout?

Edited August 5, 2008 by Guest
Added a bunch

[crnaovca]

That is my biggest problem. when working, I know I have entered some values in visit descriptions, but one day later or 5 minutes, it is not reccuring at same time ... data dissapeares?: How? :

I have never managed to find what happenes. Seems like filemaker gets corrupted after some time of working. Everything goes fine and then just relationships go wild. Pet (ex. husky) goes to different owner ... I don't get it how it can be done ... OR better, it vanishes completely. OR data vanishes. I have reinstalled windows, I have bought new computer, I have tried on different computer. Since there are a lot of records, I see problem only when I try to open that data.

I am going crazy in mysql when I create such database it works more than fine. I am downloading to see ...

[crnaovca]

The thing you have done is right. When doing same thing records are disappearing.

I am now deleting new record button in pets and visit records. But ... I have seen it on my own when I entered values and those values vanished.

All adding is going through portal. I couldn't make such script that would make for selected owner new pet. Didn't know how. Never worked ok. But such script would be more accurate than this portal based solution.

[crnaovca]

Most funny thing is that nowhere on net i couldn't find any topics about similar problem ... hope I am not that unique :

Cannot believe noone had similar problem with dissapearing records or bad relationships.

[LaRetta]

But such script would be more accurate than this portal based solution.

Once we are sure we've nailed the disappearing records issue, we can show you how to add pets and visits without using portals. I don't believe in using portals either unless it is VERY SMALL and VERY SIMPLE table being created.

But to be sure records aren't actually disappearing, you need to create a table layout which will show the raw data; it's known as a Developer layout and you will use it often. See if the records are actually there but just not displaying in the portals (next time they disappear). Let's see how it goes. Also be sure there are no other copies of this file on your computer which isn't zipped. Maybe you are accidently entering data into two different versions; been there, done that.

LaRetta

[LaRetta]

dissapearing records or bad relationships.

Sure people have had similar experiences. But they don't talk about them much because the problem is in the design or the developer and not in the FileMaker program. There are no bad relationships only developers who have made a mistake.

If FileMaker was that bad, we wouldn't be using it!! Disappearing records is sign that the solution has a wonkie ... we can fix wonkies ... it just means you don't understand some small thing. Once you get past most of this basic stuff, you'll begin to love working in FileMaker.

[crnaovca]

Ok, how can I do that? Is there another way of showing related records than portal? I will try that and see how it is going.

No, there is only one file. I am pretty sure : I have thought about that before.

P.S. another question, if filemaker 9 is out, why files are still calles fp7? Am really courious about that and cannot find answer to that ))

I will wait for some tutorial or tips on how to do thing above and will try. Will find out by the end of the week if it is working.

[LaRetta]

One more thing first:

This file has a bit of trickery which might be throwing you off as well. If you click the grey header names of Owner/pet/visits, there is a button attached with Go To Releated Record [ ONLY CURRENT RECORD]. I do not like this functionality at all. So watch that your record count doesn't jump from 15 (current Owners) to 1 Owner - making you think the rest have disappeared.

They still call it fp7 (I believe) for backward compatibility but I don't know for sure because they still could be backward compatible without that extension (I think). Maybe others can give you a clearer reason. Maybe it's just because they don't want to change the extensions all the time when unnecessary.

Why don't you use this system for rest of this week and see if any records disappear. If so post back immediately and give specifics. If not, post back and we can provide scripting to change your system over - it won't take much work. But it is always best to cease design work when a problem arises. Depending upon how the problem is resolved, you may end up losing some of that work.

LaRetta

Edited August 5, 2008 by Guest

[crnaovca]

That button is for navigation purposes only. You think that is making problems? How to open record shown in portal withput that? Or when in pet, how to open it's owner? Without using that...

I didn't get this with 15 owners to 1 owner ... probably my "expert" english problem :

[Fenton]

In such a case I would be suspicious of relationship which have [x] Allow deletion of related records on the wrong side. I can't see anything obviously wrong, not with that top group of table occurrences (TOG) on the Relationship Graph anyway. In the lower TOG there are 2 that allow deletion. It appears to me that one of them is pointing the wrong way, as it does not seem to follow the same flow. But it's impossible to tell, since I don't even know what the things are.

This is a picture of the graph, cleaned up enough to see it (click the little box to collapse your table occurrences, or hit Control-T). I put "_DEL" on them, to show allow deletion.

[crnaovca]

I am going to analyze those deletion permissions ... and other things mentioned ...

Of course, script mentioned above would be great help ... : But some points were arised that I could do better.

[LaRetta]

Hey Fenton, thanks for inspecting it further. I just looked at the big three (and colorized them for quick reference). I checked that they didn't have deletion on for the relationships but I didn't extend it further and check all the other TOs and I should have.

[LaRetta]

That button is for navigation purposes only. You think that is making problems? How to open record shown in portal withput that? Or when in pet, how to open it's owner? Without using that...

I have no problem with using that as navigation; my quibble is restricting to GTRR current record only. Users may 1) be working with a found set and this will cause them to lose it and 2) they may expect to see 20 customers listed and, when going from pet to Owner, they now only see 1 customer ... and they didn't perform a find!! I think it is bad design.

What to use? Attach a simple Go To Layout [ But there is no reason to use GTRR here. A simple Go To Layout [ Owners } will work. But much depends upon the type of navigation you need and only you can decide that. Just be aware that it may appear you are losing some records when in fct you are ending up on a limited found set.

[crnaovca]

OK, now I have more complicated question about it. If I go from pets to owners, I will see last owner that was browsed in that layout. That is ok, same as go to related record, same thing will display. But how to show owners pets in portal without using "show related records" and how to open, or how to set button in portal so when user click pet of browsing owner, to show record of that pet?

If that is problem, this will solve it ...