Corrupted Records

[RyanESmith7]

Hi All,

I'm not sure the best place to post it so we'll go here first. This has happened twice now and it is starting to scare me: I've had two different customers using similar but different FM databases on my FM server report the same issue.

 

On one of the job records as the user was entering data on FM Go, the screen flashed and the job disappeared. Another user went on to FM Pro to look at the record and saw the job, but when he clicked on it, it did the same thing. Now when I look, there is a blank record in the database. No questions marks, just all blanks. When I perform a find on the job using the information that we know about it, that record comes up, but no data is visible.

 

Is there a way that I can get this record back? What is causing it?

 

Thanks,

Ryan Smith

[Kris M]

Take one of the backups of the suspect files, run recover on it and see what happens. Then look at the log file to see what it reveals

[Wim Decorte]

Also, go back to some of your backups to see if the record is there and what data is in it.

 

Further to what Kris is saying: the recovery on a backup set will produce a "recover.log".  Go through that carefully and watch for any line where it says "modified"; it is an indication that FMP decided to change a part of your solution because of possible corruption.

 

Other than that: since it started to happen recently: what has changed to the solution and the deployment (new backup process, any changes to file sharing, any other config changes to the server,..)

[RyanESmith7]

What do you mean by recover? If I open the backup from the night before the incident, the record is there and I can hand copy the data from it.

 

There have been no changes or updates to the server in months. This was first reported about 8 days ago and then another incident about 3 days ago. These are pretty important records, so I hate for it to happen at all.

[Wim Decorte]

Recover: from the FM menu: File > Recover

remember to only run it on a backup copy of your file, not the real file!  Then check the recover.log file to see if the recovery processes modified anything in your file.  Any modifications could be a sign of corruption in the file.

 

 

To me it feels like a scripting issue, perhaps an event trigger that does something in a context that is unexpected.  Especially since the record is still there but its values empty.

[RyanESmith7]

What is weird is the values APPEAR empty, but if I search on any of the data that existed in those fields, the record is in the found set.

 

I did not have FMPro on my server, so no recover option there. Copying a 3.8Gb database from a remote server was fun, but it's done and I'm running recover on a backup now.

[RyanESmith7]

I completed "recover" on the backed up database. The recovery log shows no errors at all. In the recovered database, the record that was corrupted is completely gone. It does not show up in the result set when is search for the record.

 

I double-checked the non-recovered backup database and the record is still there and it shows up in the record set when I search on it. 

 

I'm stumped again.

[Wim Decorte]

If the recovery removed the record, you should find trace of that in the recover.log.  Do a search in the log for the word "modified", any entries like that?

 

I would triple-check your deployment against the server best practices, to make sure absolutely nothing interferes with FMS or can touch the live files.

[RyanESmith7]

I did not find any modified entries in the recover.log. Weird.

 

I will triple check my deployments. I was very careful this time due to a bad experience with a previous FM server, but I will check. FM Server is the only thing running on this server.

[Steven H. Blackwell]

I will triple check my deployments. I was very careful this time due to a bad experience with a previous FM server, but I will check. FM Server is the only thing running on this server.

Other items to check:

 

Volume Shadow Copy Off.

File Sharing Off.

Disk Indexing Off.

Power saver Never Sleep.

Hard disk Never Sleep.

Auto update--either Off or Notify Only.

Processor Scheduling--Best performance for Background Services, NOT for Programs.

 

Exactly what OS are you using on this Server?

 

Steven

[RyanESmith7]

Windows Server 2012

32Gb RAM

 

 

Auto-Update is Download but do not install

Hard Disk Never Sleep

Processor Scheduling: Background Services

Volume Shadow Copy Off

Disk Indexing Off

File Sharing - ON but not used as a file server. Have it on so I can pull a backup if I need to. Should I disable this?

 

It has been running for 43 days, which is about the last time I changed the configuration in any way.