FM 4 Oddity!

[scottcitron]

For some time now, whenever I double-click any FM4 document icon I receive the following error message: "This file cannot be opened because it does not belong with this solution."

Conversely, when I launch FM4 (Mac) and then open the document via the Open command, the file opens with no problem.

Does anyone know why I'm unable to open my FM4 docs by normal double-clicking? Many thanks!

[scottcitron]

Chuck:

You're an effin' genius. Thanks so much for your reply to my FileMaker question.

I followed your advice and noticed that when trying to double-click an FM document something called FMSMAC kept trying to launch. Apparently, as you say, this was some kind of FileMaker runtime application I had collected somewhere along the way.

Once I trashed the FMSMAC app everything opened as it should by just double-clicking.

You've made my day, week, month, and year! Thanks.

[Chuck]

You have a bundled solution on your hard drive. Bundled solutions are created with FileMaker Developer so that files can be used without having FileMaker itself. You've installed some sort of runtime bundled solution and your file is trying to open itself with the runtime version of FileMaker included with that solution.

Watch as the file tries to open to see what program is launching. Find that program on your hard drive. If you don't want to use whatever it was that that program provides, you can trash it. If you do want to use it, you can keep it on your hard drive as is, but will have to open FileMaker files with the File->Open menu. Alternatively, you can compress the file so you have it when you want it and delete the original.

A last option (on the Mac, at least) is to convert the files included with the solution to FileMaker files by using a utility that can change the creator type of the files. Then when you double-click those files instead of opening in the runtime version, they should open in FileMaker. Since you have FileMaker, you don't need to have the runtime version of it.

Chuck