Lost Communication with Host

[datalink]

A client of ours recieves messages with too great a frequency that 'Filemaker has lost communication with host. All affected windows will be closed.'

They are running Filemaker Server and all clients are on a hardwired LAN. We, somewhat stubbornly, believe that the issue has to do with some setting on the client computers or more likely some issue with their LAN.

They belive that the issue is Filemaker based. I'd be interested to hear if anyone has any ideas about this problem.

All machines are MAC and they are running Filemaker 10 and Server 10.

The server is configured to NOT disconnect idle clients.

Looking forward to any suggestions anyone might have.

Thanks.

[fseipel]

Remarkably, Filemaker's numerous 'updates' have not provided the most basic functionality to automatically reconnect when a network connection is lost. This is especially frustrating over the internet; for instance, Remote Desktop for Windoze automatically reconnects up to 10 times when a connection is lost. No need to re-enter passwords, no data lost in the RDP session. In Filemaker, the entire program sometimes crashes on a lost connection or throws licensing errors.

There are many potential causes for this, a network traffic analyzer might be good for troubleshooting. Also, check the cabling, if it was installed years ago, it's possible you have upgraded the switches to, say, 100 Mbps or 1000 Mbps, but the cabling can't handle this reliably. Replacing the central switch, if there is one, may help. If it's a managed switch, log into its configuration page and check for lost packets. Try running Super Ping or other utilities to assess lost packets and if connections to file sharing are lost simultaneously with the broken connection to FMPro. Try setting speed down to forced 10 Mbps temporarily and see if that resolves problem. If you have a ping log with timestamps (ping to server), see if pings fail at same time FM db connection is lost.