FM Server instability???

I work with a school that runs FM Server 8 on a windows machine, and
the client network is all macs. They access the database through the
FM clients and through IWP. I do most of my work on the database
remotely, using FM 8.5 Advanced.

Recently, there have been several database crashes, and I'm trying to
figure out the problem. Their network people wrote: "We ran a through
check of the server defragging the hard drive and an in depth scan
disk of the raid drives and it came up with no errors . That is a good
thing in one sense. We did find a bunch of errors in the logs that
look like unclosed sessions that the server doesn't know what to do
with. Each time the database goes down it has to be rebuilt. The
unclosed sessions are with FileMaker. We are not sure why these would
have started recently. Can you think of anything that might have
changed in the use of FileMaker in the last week or so?"

There are times when someone is connected through FMnet, on a laptop,
and then closes the lid. This creates an "unclosed session", I
assume? Should FM Server be able to handle these conditions? Is it a
problem with the Windows server? Any ideas?

TIA,
Lanse

Re: FM Server instability???

Hi Lanse

Sounds nasty!

FileMaker server handles an unexpected loss of link fine.

You may not be aware of corruption to a file that arose years ago. It
can lie dormant. One day you decide to edit a field/layout and this
causes the system to crash.

The crash may be caused by a user editing data or attempting to delete
a record; or by the developer editing a layout.

If it is file corruption that is causing it, here are some tips:
It's not recommended to use recovered files as you are doing after
each crash; the recovery process does not promise to restore the files
to 100% health. It's suggested that all the latest data is imported
into the last known healthy copies of the files instead.

Here's something else to consider. A file can get corrupted if it's
being edited during a server crash. In my case, there was a loss of
power to the server while I was editing a layout. The file was damaged
and after recovering it, the layout I was working on had become
unusable.

You may be able to work out who caused the crash by looking at the
FileMaker Server log of users. You might then be able to track it down
to a particular function that the user requested at the time of the
crash. This can be useful if you don't have uncorrupted files to fall
back on. You can then redesign the offending function to avoid the
action that causes crashes. Yes, some times it's necessary to limp on
with corrupted files!

Also, make sure you're backing up frequently. Once an hour if
necessary. This will be useful to cope with crashes. Check too that
the backups are happening and that they are usable.

Good luck.

Regards
Kevin

On Nov 19, 3:03 pm, lansingoogle wrote:
> I work with a school that runs FM Server 8 on a windows machine, and
> the client network is all macs. They access the database through the
> FM clients and through IWP. I do most of my work on the database
> remotely, using FM 8.5 Advanced.
>
> Recently, there have been several database crashes, and I'm trying to
> figure out the problem. Their network people wrote: "We ran a through
> check of the server defragging the hard drive and an in depth scan
> disk of the raid drives and it came up with no errors . That is a good
> thing in one sense. We did find a bunch of errors in the logs that
> look like unclosed sessions that the server doesn't know what to do
> with. Each time the database goes down it has to be rebuilt. The
> unclosed sessions are with FileMaker. We are not sure why these would
> have started recently. Can you think of anything that might have
> changed in the use of FileMaker in the last week or so?"
>
> There are times when someone is connected through FMnet, on a laptop,
> and then closes the lid. This creates an "unclosed session", I
> assume? Should FM Server be able to handle these conditions? Is it a
> problem with the Windows server? Any ideas?
>
> TIA,
> Lanse