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Help an Alpha Five Newbie Support His Users and a Critical Database

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    #1

    Help an Alpha Five Newbie Support His Users and a Critical Database

    I am the tech director for a K-12 school district. Our transportation department uses Alpha Five to track bus routes, students, billing for trips, etc. Basically all of their operations are in Alpha Five. We have been using Alpha Five for 10+ years and the people that set it up are long gone. Those of us here know very little about it.

    We are in the process of converting from a Novell Network to a Microsoft Network. As part of the conversion, I removed the Novell client and added the MS Client to the PC running Alpha Five. As a result a new local profile was created. When we launched Alpha Five we were asked for a serial number which I entered. We then opened the database from the network only to find that all of the tables on the tables/sets tab were grayed out and could not be opened. The report, form, etc, tabs were blank. I thought perhaps the database was corrupt so I restored it from 2 different backups only to find the same issue both times. I then decided to add the Novell Client again and log back in with the original profile. I again got the same result. I searched the local PC for .adb and .dbf files and only found Alpha Five samples.

    I created a support incident only to learn that this apparently isn't an Alpha Five issue but rather a database issue. I have now requested mentoring help but am not sure how soon that can take place. Can anyone offer any insight to what might be going on and/or how I might recover our database? This is a mission critical database for us and with school starting a couple of weeks, we are very short on time.

    Thanks for any help you can provide.

    Brad
    Tags: None
    #2
    Re: Help an Alpha Five Newbie Support His Users and a Critical Database

    Do the users of the database have read/write rights to the database folder? Just right-click on the data folder and review it's properties. In general, this first hits me as a network/user rights problem, not a database problem per se.

    As a side-note, you can also find Alpha consultants and mentoring at http://www.alphadevnet.com. Not to butt in too hard here but if you're running a school system on A5 (or any other database system) without a consultant at the ready, it just seems to me like you're inviting problems. Kinda like having a fleet of buses, hoping you'll find a mechanic's help when you need it.
    Last edited by Steve Workings; 08-10-2010, 09:37 AM.
    -Steve
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      #3
      Re: Help an Alpha Five Newbie Support His Users and a Critical Database

      They do have full access to the folder.

      I totally agee with you. We either need to find support for the application or find another application.

      BRad

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        #4
        Re: Help an Alpha Five Newbie Support His Users and a Critical Database

        I wonder what files you transferred/restored. If you only used the .dbf files, then it's incomplete. You also need the .ddd, .ddm, .ddx, .fpt, .cdx, .set, .sem., .sex and probably a few others.
        -Steve
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          #5
          Re: Help an Alpha Five Newbie Support His Users and a Critical Database

          I see the following file types.
          dbf, adb, ddd, ddm, ddx, fpt, alm, alx, muf.
          Some files have the name of the one tables (accounts) that is not grayed out. The others are called "bus98" which is not the name of any of the tables.

          Brad

          Comment

            #6
            Re: Help an Alpha Five Newbie Support His Users and a Critical Database

            The simple existence of those files isn't enough. Are they the original ones from before you began? You can probably tell by their size.

            I think you could save a lot of time and guessing if you'd zip up your database and let someone have a look at it to confirm whether you have a database problem or a system configuration problem.
            -Steve
            sigpic

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              #7
              Re: Help an Alpha Five Newbie Support His Users and a Critical Database

              Here you go. The files are very small but I restored 2 backups from a time when this was working fine. If there are files missing, perhaps you can help me determine where they used to be located from the attached files. I searched the PC for .dbf and .adb files and didn't find anything.

              Thanks,

              Brad

              Comment

                #8
                Re: Help an Alpha Five Newbie Support His Users and a Critical Database

                Does this database use a non-.dbf backend? It looks to me like the database is built with connections to a SQL-type database, and the connection string is now missing.

                For instance, if you look at the control panel when you open the database, you see the Drivers table listed in the tables/sets tab, but there is no Drivers.dbf or other local support files.

                I think you need to figure out where your data resides, and supply the proper connection string.
                -Steve
                sigpic

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                  #9
                  Re: Help an Alpha Five Newbie Support His Users and a Critical Database

                  Originally posted by breichert View Post
                  I searched the PC for .dbf and .adb files and didn't find anything.
                  Hi Brad,

                  Your data files appear to be located in the following drive/folder:

                  i:\alpha4v3\buses

                  There are several dbf files there. A 10-year old app wouldn't have SQL connection strings anyway.
                  Peter
                  AlphaBase Solutions, LLC

                   [email protected]
                  https://www.alphabasesolutions.com

                  Comment

                    #10
                    Re: Help an Alpha Five Newbie Support His Users and a Critical Database

                    Peter's right - a 10 year old app.

                    So Brad, copy your .dbf, .ddd, .ddm, .ddx, .fpt and .cdx files from i:\alpha4v3\buses to the current location of your database and you'll be in better shape.
                    -Steve
                    sigpic

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                      #11
                      Re: Help an Alpha Five Newbie Support His Users and a Critical Database

                      That is interesting. I am not aware of an I drive over there but that does give me something to look for!

                      Thanks!

                      Brad

                      Comment

                        #12
                        Re: Help an Alpha Five Newbie Support His Users and a Critical Database

                        Originally posted by Peter.Greulich View Post
                        Hi Brad,

                        Your data files appear to be located in the following drive/folder:

                        i:\alpha4v3\buses

                        There are several dbf files there. A 10-year old app wouldn't have SQL connection strings anyway.
                        Pete, you are my hero!!!! It turns out that the data was actually in the home directory of a previous transportation secretary. Apparently a previous tech person mapped a drive to that location rather than moving the data. I didn't have a clue.

                        Thank you!, Thank you!, Thank you!

                        Brad

                        Comment

                          #13
                          Re: Help an Alpha Five Newbie Support His Users and a Critical Database

                          Very good, Sir!
                          Peter
                          AlphaBase Solutions, LLC

                           [email protected]
                          https://www.alphabasesolutions.com

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