How to stop long summarizing process?

[nor500]

I am working with external oracle database. I don't know how to stop a long Filemaker calculation process. Whenever

---"Summarizing field "xxxx",

Records remain to process "xxxx",

STOP button ---

dialog box shows up starting a very long summarizing process and if I don't want it and I push the STOP button on that dialog box the process just stops fors two seconds starts again and again. The only way I can stop the summarizing process is to force quit the whole File Maker application....which is not good..

Please help me find the good way to stop a long unwanted summarizing process.

[jamesducker]

Remove the summary fields from the layout you are using.

The summary fields typically spend their time totalling up all the values from all the records in the found set.

If you have a large found set of records that FileMaker has to add up (and especially if those records travel a long distance to get to you, e.g. from the oracle database, along the network, through the ODBC driver, in to FileMaker, then in to a big calculation of the total) then this will take a while!

The reason the dialog appears again after you press stop is probably that there are lots of summary fields. You stop it on one, and it then starts on the next one.

You are unwittingly asking FileMaker to do one heck of a lot of calculations here, putting an unnecessary strain on the oracle database, your own machine's resources, and the network.

Take the summary fields off the layout, and FileMaker won't feel the need to calculate the totals (or averages, or whatever they are)... so the problem will go away.

Hope that helps.

James

[nor500]

I know I have to remove the summary fields, but my question was regarding how exactly stop that extremely long process because I don't want it to wait until the process finishes. There is a stop button, but that doesn't work. It restart itself again and again. Is there any workaround to stop that long process in one step?

Thanks for your answer.

[Raybaudi]

You just had the answer: press that stop button so many times as the number of your summary fields.

[nor500]

It is quite ridiculous if there is no any other way...I have been pushing the stop button maybe 10 times, and the summarizing process still keeps restarting. I got tired with that. Finally I decided to force quit filemaker.

Are you sure there is no other way? That would a serious bug with Filemaker.

[Vaughan]

That would a serious bug with Filemaker.

If you display a layout with summary fields on it, FileMaker calculates them. It does that to display the data. It is not a bug.

Only put summary fields on layouts that you WANT to display them on, like reports.

[nor500]

The point is I would like to get rid of that summary field which makes filemaker pro start summirizing. But to wait until the process finishes would take several hours which I don't want to wait that so long. So my questin was how can I change from browse mode to layout mode interupting the summary process. Because there is a STOP button on the summarizing dialog box. And I think that is a bug, because that STOP button just doesn't stop process what suppose to do. So my question is again is there any workaround from change from browse mode to layout mode interupting the extreme long summarizing process.

[bruceR]

Get into layout mode in a different layout, then switch layouts.