Files & Tables Consolidation

[SarahS]

I have an old solution that started out in FileMaker 5 with 35 files and I am working to consolidate it down to 5 files.  The user interface will be two files and the data will be three files (general data, more sensitive data, & images/containers data).  There are currently 106 tables in the general data file and quite a few less in the other two files. 

1) Is it unwise to have so many tables in one file if there should be data corruption that requires recovery? 

2) I am re-creating the field definitions and just noticed after duplicating a table occurrence that the name does not appear in "Occurrences in Graph".  I have tried re-doing the action, opening & closing the file, and duplicating other table's TOs and the same problem occurs.  Is there a maximum number of TOs that are displayed in the "Occurrences in Graph" column of the tables tab?  (Seeing this happen is what made me wonder if I was doing the wrong thing by consolidating so many tables into the same file...)  Is this an issue?

Thank you,

Sarah

[SarahS]

I did some more testing and have created an Issue Report in the FM Community, which can be viewed at:

https://community.filemaker.com/message/539877#539877

The initial posting in that issue report is copied to below:

Product and version: FileMaker 14.0.4 (but I was able to replicate the issue in 13.0.9 as well)

OS and version: Mac 10.10.5

Browser and version (for WebDirect only): N/A

Hardware: MacBook

Description: I have a file with 107 tables and when you duplicate a TO in the relationship graph, that TO is not listed on the "Tables" tab in Manage Database in the "Occurrences in Graph" column.  If you add a new TO using the "Add New" button (instead of duplicating an existing one), then the new TO DOES show up in the "Ocurrences in Graph" column of "Tables" in Manage Database.  Note: This does not seem to be a problem when there are not fewer data tables (& TOs on the graph).

How to replicate: From a file with many data tables, duplicate an existing TO from the relationship graph.

Workaround (if any): Use the "Add new TO" button vs. duplicating existing TOs

 

The consistency check as well as running recover on a copy of the file did not indicate that there are any issues with the file.  This is a brand new empty file that I began with as "from scratch" recently.  It has not crashed at any point.  I created the data tables by importing .xls spreadsheets (with one row only for the field names).

 

I would like to know from FileMaker if this bug affects the integrity of my file at all or if it is okay to continue developing my files that I duplicated TOs in vs. adding as new TOs?

[Lee Smith]

Hi SarahS,

On February 2, 2016 at 6:10 PM, SarahS said:

 

I did some more testing and have created an Issue Report in the FM Community, which can be viewed at:

https://community.filemaker.com/message/539877#539877

it looks like you are getting some pretty good help.

Lee

[SarahS]

Yes, I am very thankful.  It is an answer to prayer!

[SarahS]

TSGal from FileMaker found the solution to my problem, as detailed below.  I had an external data source with the same name as the current file and the TOs that had an issue were all pointed to that external data source.

I noticed in the Relationships graph that the tables in question are in Italics, which means you are linking to another file's table; not the current file.  If you hover over the top left corner of each italic table, you will see you are linked to a file, even if it is the current file.  If you hover over the top left corner of a non-italic table, you will see the Data Source set to <current table>.

 

Changing these externally linked tables to current tables will then display the table occurrence in the Tables tab "Occurrences in Graph".