The "Impossibility" of losing FileMaker data

[Craig Wall]

I have designed a solution that is shared over a network that I remotely oversee. My client has witnessed frequent loss of client connection, and I see it myself about once a day when I log in remotely.

 

Losing connection is an issue in itself which I've been researching.

 

But what I'd like your opinion about is a related issue. Several staff members swear that on a few occasions when they lose their connection that they also lost some of their work. I've viewed this a spurious claim because of the nature of FM. Sure, I, conceded, you might lose the work in one field but I haven't seen it as possible to lose more than that.

 

Am I wrong? Is it possible in a network environment to lose data--beyond the active field?

[Rick Whitelaw]

Any data not sent will be lost of course, but also records that are not committed, which can involve a lot more than a single field. Todd Geist's Transactional techniques are interesting in this regard. The "all or nothing" result is better than not knowing which data are committed in the event of a connection loss.

[Craig Wall]

Any data not sent will be lost of course, but also records that are not committed, which can involve a lot more than a single field. Todd Geist's Transactional techniques are interesting in this regard. The "all or nothing" result is better than not knowing which data are committed in the event of a connection loss.

Assuming we aren't talking about something that occurs in the middle of a script being run...but rather an individual user doing data entry...isn't any data committed on a local client immediately stored on the server?

[bcooney]

See #8

http://help.filemaker.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/5874/~/optimizing-network-performance-for-shared-databases

[bruceR]

What do you mean by "shared over a network?"

Using FileMaker Server? What version, OS, etc?

[Rick Whitelaw]

Craig, I could be wrong about this but don't think so. Let's say a user is entering data on one record by tabbing through a large number of fields on a layout. I don't believe anything would be committed until a clear commit action is performed by the user such as clicking on a "clear" area of the layout. And of course the files themselves don't exist on the client machine. Only on the server. So any changes being made are made to the hosted file.

[David Jondreau]

One thing to check is Preferences...Memory-->Save Cache Contents. That should be set to "During idle time..."

[Craig Wall]

Thanks to all with some very helpful replies.

 

I can see my notion was incorrect and that I better learn more about cache settings! 

 

Bruce, the server and clients are all using latest FM13.