FMP 9 Portal Problems

Profile:
Win Server 2003
FMServer 9 (Love it!)
Client OS - XP Pro SP2
FMPro 9 - 17 Clients

We recently upgraded from FMPro 6, FMServer 5.5

We receive product daily from numerous customers. On our receiving layout
there is a portal that shows other product received from the same customer
on that particular day.

Problem: Using FMPro 6, the portal was updated at the time the related info
was input. Using FMPro 9, the portal is not updated UNTIL one of the fields
IN the portal is clicked on / committed. Even then, if there is more than
one record in the portal, each record has to be clicked on before all the
related records appear.

Am I missing something?

Thanks in advance!

Re: FMP 9 Portal Problems

Brent Simon wrote:

> Profile:
> Win Server 2003
> FMServer 9 (Love it!)
> Client OS - XP Pro SP2
> FMPro 9 - 17 Clients
>
> We recently upgraded from FMPro 6, FMServer 5.5
>
> We receive product daily from numerous customers. On our receiving layout
> there is a portal that shows other product received from the same customer
> on that particular day.
>
> Problem: Using FMPro 6, the portal was updated at the time the related info
> was input. Using FMPro 9, the portal is not updated UNTIL one of the fields
> IN the portal is clicked on / committed. Even then, if there is more than
> one record in the portal, each record has to be clicked on before all the
> related records appear.

Hi Brent.

You are not alone. I've struck the same problem with FMPro 9, in my
first attempt at creating a relatively complex multi-table and
multi-file relational database.

I haven't had time yet to track it down further. I also have FMPro 7,
and a friend has 8.5, so I'll be doing some more tests to see whether
this is a problem which only affects version 9, or whether there is
something fundamental I've missed which makes the problem occur on FMPro
7 or later.

In my case, the layout with the portal exhibiting the problem has a
script which I execute manually from the script menu (to be added as a
button once I get that far).

This script invokes a script in a second file which creates a set of
records to be displayed in the portal.

When the script finishes executing, the portal is showing all but one of
the newly created records. If I click on each entry in the portal, some
of them are adjusted to show a different entry, and by the time I click
on all of them, the missing record has appeared.

It is sort of like the portal got filled in "out of sync" with the
execution of the script and there is an off-by-one error which it hasn't
handled correctly.

I'm wondering if there is some kind of "refresh" script step or screen
locking mechanism I need to use to avoid this problem.

--
David Empson
dempson@actrix.gen.nz

Re: FMP 9 Portal Problems

On Sep 1, 11:14 pm, Brent Simon wrote:
> Profile:
> Win Server 2003
> FMServer 9 (Love it!)
> Client OS - XP Pro SP2
> FMPro 9 - 17 Clients
>
> We recently upgraded from FMPro 6, FMServer 5.5
>
> We receive product daily from numerous customers. On our receiving layout
> there is a portal that shows other product received from the same customer
> on that particular day.
>
> Problem: Using FMPro 6, the portal was updated at the time the related info
> was input. Using FMPro 9, the portal is not updated UNTIL one of the fields
> IN the portal is clicked on / committed. Even then, if there is more than
> one record in the portal, each record has to be clicked on before all the
> related records appear.
>
> Am I missing something?
>
> Thanks in advance!

I recently did a very similar upgrade from FMP 6 and Server 5.5 to FMP
8.5 and Server 8.
My solutions are very portal and relationship heavy, and I had the
same problems in many files. The problem stems from the change in how
FM handles uncommited records in non active windows. In FMP 6, only
the active record in the active file was uncommited and locked. As
soon as a user moved to any other window or file, or even clicked out
of a field area, the previously active record was commited, closed and
unlocked. In FMP8 and later, that is no longer the case. If the user
or a script brings a window or file to the front of the display, the
previously active record(s) is still NOT commited and unlocked,
eventhough it is NOT visible on the screen. In my case I also
received a variety of error messages that various records were in use,
and could not be modified, when in fact the problem was that the
records had not been comitted before changing windows and active
records.
In most cases I was able to solve the problem by adding a "Commit
Record" script step after any "Set Field" steps in most of my
scripts. It was very tedious and frustrating. I found NO mention of
it anywhere in the pre-upgrade documentation.

'Hope that helps!

This week I am upgrading from Server 8 to server 9. I really hope it
goes better!

Re: FMP 9 Portal Problems

Robinhood wrote:

> In most cases I was able to solve the problem by adding a "Commit
> Record" script step after any "Set Field" steps in most of my
> scripts. It was very tedious and frustrating. I found NO mention of
> it anywhere in the pre-upgrade documentation.

Thanks for that tip - I can confirm that it fixed the problem I was
having with my database (described in a followup to the original
poster).

--
David Empson
dempson@actrix.gen.nz