Filemaker 5 Disappearing!

[CLL]

We have a small web site using WebStar 4.3 and Filemaker 5 unlimited/web companion with a few custom published web pages for searching for classes in a catalog.

For some reason, Filemaker unexpectedly and seemingly at random, "disappears". IE it does not show up in the finder, but when I try to restart it I get the "too many licensed users" (we have only one license for unlimited) and I have to restart the machine.

I have enabled the error logs to see what pages are being used when it crashes, and there seems to be no rhyme or reason to it. No consistent searches being performed. The interval between crashes ranges from a few hours to a few days-- it doesn't seem to be dependent on load either, in that it happens sometimes with almost no accesses and at other times after a long period of high access.

This is driving me crazy! I have: run tech tool pro and cleaned/scanned/defragged the disk, moved from os 8.6 to 9.0x, tried on two completely different machines (one G3, another G4), tried opening the db's locally and from a Filemaker 5 Server machine, disabled all plugins that were not necessary for the operation.

I am running out of options. This is a pretty stock setup and I have to believe that someone out there has experienced similar problems.

[cfoster]

We're encountering the same problem, so you're not alone. I haven't tried any remedies yet (I thought I'd check the forum first), so I'm very interested to see if anyone has tips/advice on this issue.

[Anatoli]

We have none of this on NT server.

On Mec yes; try to press FileMaker Inc. for fix.

[Sirrahz]

I'm having the EXACT same problems. I thought upgrading webcompanion would help and it did. But then it started "Bombing" with a message about FileMaker unexpectedly quitting with no other option but to restart the machine.

Yesterday I threw out the FMP preferences folder and it seems to be stable.

I've been searching like crazy and have not found any clear specifications about this problem or how to fix it (I have done tests with it on an NT server and it NEVER crashed). I'm hosting a 5 file relational FMP solution set up on a 9600 with FMP Unlimited 5.0v3 and (since just recently) WC 5.0v6. Although I haven't tested it enough to be sure, it seems as though upgrading from WC 5.0v3 to 5.0v6 has solved the random "disappearing" problem.

If you haven't already done it, upgrade your WebCompanion from the FileMaker site, test it for a while and let us know what happens. If it weren't for this problem, I'd be recommending FileMaker Unlimited as the most affordable and user friendly solution for incorporating dynamic data into web sites. Databases are as we all know the main strength of the Internet and there are a lot of Mac Webmasters that could easely exploit this type of solution. BUT, not if it's crashing for no aparent reason! While you're downloading the upgrade, check out the upgrade changes for WC 5.0v5 for the possible fixes in stability.

Let me know!

ZaC

[DykstrL]

Upgrade to 5.0v6 Web Companion. That seems to have worked for us with the same problem.

[MYSTV]

Upgrading from WC v5.3 to WC v5.5 stabilized our environment immediately as well.

[wfryer]

I am running into a similar crashing / freezing /disappearing problem that I can't explain. Maybe downloading a new patch / web companion will help, but that is going to disable the mailformat fields which I really use and need! I am running Filemaker Server 5.5 on a Mac G3 running OS 8.6, and that is very stable. I was running FMP 5 Unlimited since Aug 01 on Win NT 4 SP6 with no problems, but now that I upgraded to FMP 5.5 Unlimited I got a bunch of unexplained lockups that the logs couldn't explain. Any ideas / suggestions besides upgrading with the new web companion patch?