Strange: Filemaker automatically creating unwanted child records. Any ideas?

[Jhestler]

Hi Everybody!

 

Running FM 12 on a mixed network.  I've discovered a really strange anomaly.

 

In a database with 200 grandparent records, 20,000 parent records, and 0 children records, Filemaker keeps automatically creating a child record associated with the first parent in the alphabetically-sorted group of parents.  When I delete the child, Filemaker automatically re-creates it!

 

The way I discovered this was as follows:

 

I have a layout which displays a portal.  The layout is set to show the children.  The portal is set to show only those children with a certain status.  This portal is established by way of a self-relationship between a global field within the child table and the status field within the child table.  When the user clicks the button to navigate to the layout containing the portal, the script sets the global field in the child table with a designated value, thereby establishing the self-relationship between child and child that fulfills the portal only with those child records that have the designated status.  This way I can set up multiple layouts, each displaying children of varied status.

 

The problem is that there shouldn't be any child records, because the users haven't created any.  However, when the user presses the button to navigate to the above-mentioned layout, thereby triggering the script which fulfills the global field, a single child record is automatically created! 

 

Thankfully only one child record is created when navigating to the layout, but I don't understand why this is happening and would like to eliminate it.  I've used this setup for many years, and have never encountered this before.

 

Any ideas?

 

Thank you!!!

 

J

[doughemi]

This can occur when you set a field in a child TO if the parent primary key is blank (and the relationship is configured to allow creation of records).  if the child has an auto-entered ID field, FileMaker will create a new child record, set the field, and populate the PK with the child ID.

[Jhestler]

Thanks, Doughemi : )