"?" question mark displayed in field data instead of actual data

[ew123]

Hello FM Forums!

 

I've been a long time reader, and many an instance had the itch to sign up and offer thoughts on a problem... but the star talent here shines so bright, that I have always opted to humbly read along and learn.

 

And I've come across a stumbler which I cannot solve.

 

Oh FMS11, with FMP11 mac clients, all the data for one record in a parent table is being displayed as "?" - question marks - one per field.  This apparently happened when network issues occurred as child records in a portal were being edited.

 

Beyond the question marks, all links to child tables are now broken from this context.

 

One of the staff rebooted the machine (with phone help from IT director on proper shut down (fmp db included) procedures) but the error has not gone away.

 

The confusing thing is that I am able to search and find results on the original content of those fields (index cache?).  Thus, I presume the original data is still there.  This is the case on all layouts of this file.  (Child tables are in separate files).

 

Further, I can see proper and working links by looking at child table layouts which pull data from the parent table.

 

Since this error, there has been just over a day of work done by users with the system, so rolling back is not optimal.  Downloaded 1 day old backup and see all data as it should be for the record on local FMP11a.  Creating a new record in the parent table and linking all child table info to the new record should not be too much of hassle (perhaps 45-50 entries) - and can even be done manually.

 

But.. I can't seem to shake the feeling that this is something simple.  And... then there is the question of whether I will be able to delete the record at all...  or worse yet, that this is a sign of more trouble to come.

 

Any thoughts or comments welcomed.

 

Thank you in advance.

[Josh Ormond]

It sounds like the index may be corrupted.  So you could start with these 2 things:

 

• Make a copy of the database. And run the Recovery feature on the copy.  See if it reports any errors.
• Open the Manage Database dialog. Turn off all the indexing on all the fields.  Close and save.  Turn all the indexing back on ( for the fields you need it ).  This may take a while if you have a lot of records.

[ew123]

Thank you for your reply.

 

Recovery feature returned: "Recover built a new database without detecting any problems."

Consistency check also found no errors.

 

The only difference, is that it removed! the questionable record with the "?" - which is surprising as I would have expected an exception about this in the log.

 

The indexing off/on option does not seem to have any effect.

 

Just deleting the record also does the job. And I am able to create a new record and link all child table records to it without a problem.  So, a workable solution exists, but so does the puzzle...

 

 

[doughemi]

Saving a compacted copy will also rebuild indexes.  It's worth a try.