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overwriting records

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    overwriting records

    Our company uses Alpha 5 vs 10 to create and print job tickets. We have it set up for the job number to automatically advance to the next number when "New Job Ticket" button is pushed. We have used Alpha since 1996. I, by no means, am a computer programmer, but I was able to use Alpha to create what our company needed. Everything has been working GREAT until the past 3 weeks.

    There have been 4 different times when job tickets were being entered that it would write over jobs that had already been written. In other words, we would have two orders but only one job ticket number. I thought maybe we had to many records, we had approximately 102,000. I was told we could have up to 2,000,000 but we deleted 1500 records and everything worked fine for about a week.

    I then noticed the problem occurred after I would enter information on a job ticket. All the computers in the shop have Alpha 5 Runtime, except for mine and I have the developer. I thought this might be causing the problem so I loaded Runtime on my machine also. However, I did not delete the developer. My question is, is my having the developer on my system what is causing the issues or is there something else I need to look into? As I said, I am not a computer programmer or an IT person. I just happened to be the designated one at our company.

    Thank you in advance for any suggestions and help!!
    Sharon

    #2
    Re: overwriting records

    Sharon....

    Since you've used Alpha for such a long time, I'm going to guess that there is an autoincrement field on the system that has 'rolled over' or done something else to cause the duplicate numbers.

    Rather than explain all of the details, perhaps someone can connect with you and help fix it...

    You can look at the values in a browse of the job tickets table and sort on the id field...
    Al Buchholz
    Bookwood Systems, LTD
    Weekly QReportBuilder Webinars Thursday 1 pm CST

    Occam's Razor - KISS
    Normalize till it hurts - De-normalize till it works.
    Advice offered and questions asked in the spirit of learning how to fish is better than someone giving you a fish.
    When we triage a problem it is much easier to read sample systems than to read a mind.
    "Make it as simple as possible, but not simpler."
    Albert Einstein

    http://www.iadn.com/images/media/iadn_member.png

    Comment


      #3
      Re: overwriting records

      Sharon,

      Sorry to hear about your problems. It's very unlikely that having the developer version on your system is the culprit.

      What's changed in the last 3 weeks? New machines? More people entering new job tickets than before?

      Tell us more about your network setup. What operating system are the workstations using? Is the network a simple peer-to-peer arrangement? Is the machine that has your database on it being used for anything else?

      How often do you re-index your tables?

      Comment


        #4
        Re: overwriting records

        Al - Yes, we do have an autoincrement field set up. It gets adjusted each year. Our job ticket numbers have the year then the ticket number. (ex. 96-5505, 99-1711, 05-0232, 12-1723).

        Tom - I don't know of anything that has changed in the last 3 weeks. We have not added any new machines. For the most part, there is one person who enters all the job orders. Once in a while my boss will enter a few tickets also. Our database is on our server. We have Alpha and our accounting information on the database but other than that, the server is used for storage. All computers are connected to the server through routers. Most of the workstations operating systems are Windows XP. There are a couple that are using Windows 7.

        I haven't had to re-index very often until the last 3 weeks. During the last 3 weeks, I have re-indexed at least once a week.

        Comment


          #5
          Re: overwriting records

          Sharon, when exactly did the Win7 PC's get plugged in?
          Is Alpha in the Program Files(x86) folder on thos PC's?
          See our Hybrid Option here;
          https://hybridapps.example-software.com/


          Apologies to anyone I haven't managed to upset yet.
          You are held in a queue and I will get to you soon.

          Comment


            #6
            Re: overwriting records

            They have been in use for at least 9 months. Yes, Alpha is the Program Files(x86) folder. Is that a problem?

            Comment


              #7
              Re: overwriting records

              Where are the tables stored? Have you run drive diagnostics on this system? (I'd check the ram too.)
              Have you noticed anything else peculiar when your pc is performing other tasks?

              Also, I wonder how many records might possibly be in the details table....
              And is this "occurrence" seemingly random, or does it happen under a specific circumstance?
              ~What's the frequency relative to the number of transactions you are adding?

              ...."Just thinking out loud."
              Last edited by SNusa; 04-10-2012, 10:28 AM.
              Robert T. ~ "I enjoy manipulating data... just not my data."
              It's all about the "framework." (I suppose an "a5-induced" hard drive crash is now in order?)
              RELOADED: My current posting activity here merely represents a "Momentary Lapse Of Reason."

              Comment


                #8
                Re: overwriting records

                The tables are stored on the server. I have not run drive diagnostics on the system.

                I'm not sure I understand what you are asking about the details table...can you explain?

                It seems to happen after I have entered information on a job ticket from my system.


                It does not seem to be affected by the number of records entered. It has varied each time it has occurred.

                Comment


                  #9
                  Re: overwriting records

                  I assume that for each transaction entered, you have multiple detail items on each "job ticket"....
                  If you have 100,000 "jobs" and each job has 20 lines of detail that's 2,000,000 records....

                  How about the other systems, do they seem to be adding data/jobs properly?
                  (Can you recreate this problem using the other computers? If not it could be system related.)

                  I'm ruling out network problems, as you have implied this is happening on the system where the data is stored, right?

                  If it's only on one system, it could be hardware failing, software conflicts, windows corruption, even a virus..... It may not have anything to do with a5. ~I'd run hardware diagnostics first. (for basic hard drive testing): in explorer, right click on drive, select properties, and use the "tools" tab.") There is also "windows memory diagnostics" for checking ram.... On Win-7, click "start" and type in (search for memory), it will pop up.

                  If the hardware checks out OK, and if it's only "happening" on one system, try re-installing a5 (full install, using the most recent versions of v.10)
                  Last edited by SNusa; 04-10-2012, 10:52 AM.
                  Robert T. ~ "I enjoy manipulating data... just not my data."
                  It's all about the "framework." (I suppose an "a5-induced" hard drive crash is now in order?)
                  RELOADED: My current posting activity here merely represents a "Momentary Lapse Of Reason."

                  Comment


                    #10
                    Re: overwriting records

                    WOW...I feel REALLY stupid!!!! I didn't even think about that!

                    Yes, we do have a memo field.

                    Comment


                      #11
                      Re: overwriting records

                      Originally posted by SpencerPrinting View Post
                      WOW...I feel REALLY stupid!!!! I didn't even think about that!

                      Yes, we do have a memo field.
                      Using memo fields can mess things up with dbf's, and cause data corruption..... (so I've read)
                      If you have 100,000 records, you may have 100,000 individual memo files all stuffed into the same directory....
                      (And that's got to hinder performance/efficiency at the very least.)
                      Last edited by SNusa; 04-10-2012, 10:55 AM.
                      Robert T. ~ "I enjoy manipulating data... just not my data."
                      It's all about the "framework." (I suppose an "a5-induced" hard drive crash is now in order?)
                      RELOADED: My current posting activity here merely represents a "Momentary Lapse Of Reason."

                      Comment


                        #12
                        Re: overwriting records

                        The data is stored on our server. I have the developer installed on my computer but the data is not stored on my computer.

                        I will check the hardware on my system and the others as well as the server.

                        Comment


                          #13
                          Re: overwriting records

                          Originally posted by SpencerPrinting View Post
                          They have been in use for at least 9 months. Yes, Alpha is the Program Files(x86) folder. Is that a problem?
                          Has been for me. I load Alpha R/t in a root folder on the drive.
                          See our Hybrid Option here;
                          https://hybridapps.example-software.com/


                          Apologies to anyone I haven't managed to upset yet.
                          You are held in a queue and I will get to you soon.

                          Comment


                            #14
                            Re: overwriting records

                            If it's not a "memo field issue" and the .dbf records are not over ~2 mil, I'll bet [and am really hoping] the problem is not directly Alpha related....... (I'm kind of curious to hear back from Sharon on this!)
                            Robert T. ~ "I enjoy manipulating data... just not my data."
                            It's all about the "framework." (I suppose an "a5-induced" hard drive crash is now in order?)
                            RELOADED: My current posting activity here merely represents a "Momentary Lapse Of Reason."

                            Comment


                              #15
                              Re: overwriting records

                              If you have 100,000 records, you may have 100,000 individual memo files all stuffed into the same directory....
                              A memo field for a dbf file is actually a path to another file in the folder on the server ending in ftp. If it is 4 gigs, it is full or corrupted. There is only one file, not many.
                              2 mil records should not be a real problem as I understand it, but the size of the files could be a big problem. Of course, more records = larger files.
                              I also install runtime on a folder off root like "c:\aruntime".
                              Dave Mason
                              [email protected]
                              Skype is dave.mason46

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