Missing Data - Giant "Hole" in data file

[DianneD]

The application that I am running has been stable for the past 8 yrs. I am running on windows 98 workstations with a Novell 4.11 server. There are approx. 75 users on the network. The problem started about 3 months ago. Records looked blank when viewed through the program. I looked at the dbf directly using the DBX utility, and an entire section of the database appeared to be wiped out. Strangely, though, if I did an indeex seek it took me to the right location in the file. I went out to DOS and did a file copy of the file and miraculously the missing records reappeared. It has happened 3 times on two separate files from two separate systems (two different EXE's that share the same data files). I cannot identify a pattern at all. Any suggestions or thoughts or similar occurances would be much appreciated.

 

[Terenas]

1) How big are the .DBF files ?
2) Which version of Clipper did you compile these two applications ?
ST

 

[DianneD]

One file is 32 Meg and the other 140 Meg. I have another datafile which is 186 meg that I havent't had this problem with yet. The clipper version is 5.2e and linked with Blinker 3.1. None of this has changed recently, they have used these versions for at least the last 5 years. Additionally, I am using the CDX driver.

 

[GAstrada]

DianneD: "commit" is the magic statment in a network environment. AFTER ALL WRITE on a record. This should make a "hard" write on the hard disk. I asume you are out of viruses. Excuse me, but, in an unstable platform from Microsoft (whatever is it), I've found it as at all times the key to look every record from every station. And to WRITE the correct record. See you in Linux, Unix, soon !!!! regards.

 

[circes9]

Did you ever say that you were using indexes while looking at these records? If so, did you try rebuilding the indexes and see if it made any difference?
have the files been packed recently? Have you used and diagnostic programs like Norton's or Dsalvage to test the integrety for the files and the header record?
just some ideas for you to consider.
Circes

 

[tlc00]

Some things immediately come to mind that might help:
1) if your data are on the shared netware drive: Buffers between Windoze and Netware sometimes keep data in RAM instead of writing to the shared drive. A 'hard write' may or may not solve the problem. You may need to tweaking the netware client buffers, flush the smartdrv cache after each write, etc.
2) if I remember correctly, there was a magic number in Clipper NTX (key length, number of records) that would make the index unuseable. Does that also exist in the CDX RDD? The magic NTX number often didn't appear for years after an application was installed.
3) how long ago did you upgrade your users to Win98? 1st or 2nd edition?

 

[markfrolic]

These are my suggestions:

1. Increase the memory of the system handling these file (the workstation) if you are using DBedit to browse the files.
2. Blinker takes a lot of memory, try using rtlink.exe for your linking.

Mark Frolic

Feed me back on : markfrolic@hotmail.com

 

[mxPavel]

I also think that the problem seems to be on the time between the worstation writes the data to its buffer and the physical write on the server side.

If you resolve your problem, please tell us how!

By the way: I do not agree when Mark say´s that blinker takes a lot of memory: the loader part of blinker and load size of a EXE file depends on how you link the exe (static or dinamyc overlay´s, etc), the code size, the var table size and a lot of other things.

I was using Blinker since version 2 (now I´m using 5.10) and I think that its the only product that does what it claims, and does it very well!

Best regards.