I've seen this a couple of times in different DB's where a record in a database display question marks (?) in all the fields. When I perform a file recovery, no errors are reported, but the record in question disappears. What is odd is the record can be found based on data that was on the record, say, by Student ID number. As far as I can tell the record is completely corrupted so I import a good copy of the record from a backup. Any ideas on why this is happening?

It sounds like corruption. Any file which recovery was performed on should not be used again. Instead the recovered data should have been exported and reimported into a clean backup.

... When I perform a file recovery, no errors are reported, but the record in question disappears. ..

Has this File been closed by a system error, power failure, or has FileMaker just quit?

Was this file converted from a older version of FileMaker?

HTH

Lee

Has this File been closed by a system error, power failure, or has FileMaker just quit?

Was this file converted from a older version of FileMaker?

Lee

Not recently. I was able to the track progression of the corruption using our nightly backups. The records became corrupt over a two day period (Friday and Saturday). On Saturday the file was only accessed by our "Sentinel" box so that leads me to suspect it. This box is set up to automatically import data every morning around 5:45 AM & runs 24/7. It has not had a problem in weeks so I don't think it is crashing out, but the imports are kinda big so that might be munching the data.

As for the conversion question... Yes, it has been converted over the years starting with FMP 4 or 5. I've never seen problems like this in any of our DB's hosted by FMS 4, 5 & 7. We did upgrade this year to FMP 9 Server Advanced, but can't directly tie this issue to the upgrade.

Thanks,

Darrin

Not recently. I was able to the track progression of the corruption using our nightly backups. The records became corrupt over a two day period (Friday and Saturday). On Saturday the file was only accessed by our "Sentinel" box so that leads me to suspect it. This box is set up to automatically import data every morning around 5:45 AM & runs 24/7. It has not had a problem in weeks so I don't think it is crashing out, but the imports are kinda big so that might be munching the data.

Sounds like you have nailed it.

As for the conversion question... Yes, it has been converted over the years starting with FMP 4 or 5. I've never seen problems like this in any of our DB's hosted by FMS 4, 5 & 7. We did upgrade this year to FMP 9 Server Advanced, but can't directly tie this issue to the upgrade.

Take a look at this white paper about file corruption Link, and the white papers available at FileMaker Inc on Migration.

HTH

Lee