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The Alpha Software Forum Participation Guidelines

The Alpha Software Forum is a free forum created for Alpha Software Developer Community to ask for help, exchange ideas, and share solutions. Alpha Software strives to create an environment where all members of the community can feel safe to participate. In order to ensure the Alpha Software Forum is a place where all feel welcome, forum participants are expected to behave as follows:
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Be sure all comments and threads you post are respectful. Posts that contain any of the following content will be considered a violation of your agreement as a member of the Alpha Software Forum Community and will be moderated:
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If a thread or post is found to contain any of the content outlined above, a moderator may choose to take one of the following actions:
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Moderators may also rename posts and threads if they are too generic or do not property reflect the content.

Moderators may move threads if they have been posted in the incorrect forum.

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The owners of Alpha Software Corporation (Forum Owner) reserve the right to remove, edit, move, or close any thread for any reason; or ban any forum member without notice, reason, or explanation.

Community members are encouraged to click the "Report Post" icon in the lower left of a given post if they feel the post is in violation of the rules. This will alert the Moderators to take a look.

Alpha Software Corporation may amend the guidelines from time to time and may also vary the procedures it sets out where appropriate in a particular case. Your agreement to comply with the guidelines will be deemed agreement to any changes to it.



Bonus TIPS for Successful Posting

Try a Search First
It is highly recommended that a Search be done on your topic before posting, as many questions have been answered in prior posts. As with any search engine, the shorter the search term, the more "hits" will be returned, but the more specific the search term is, the greater the relevance of those "hits". Searching for "table" might well return every message on the board while "tablesum" would greatly restrict the number of messages returned.

When you do post
First, make sure you are posting your question in the correct forum. For example, if you post an issue regarding Desktop applications on the Mobile & Browser Applications board , not only will your question not be seen by the appropriate audience, it may also be removed or relocated.

The more detail you provide about your problem or question, the more likely someone is to understand your request and be able to help. A sample database with a minimum of records (and its support files, zipped together) will make it much easier to diagnose issues with your application. Screen shots of error messages are especially helpful.

When explaining how to reproduce your problem, please be as detailed as possible. Describe every step, click-by-click and keypress-by-keypress. Otherwise when others try to duplicate your problem, they may do something slightly different and end up with different results.

A note about attachments
You may only attach one file to each message. Attachment file size is limited to 2MB. If you need to include several files, you may do so by zipping them into a single archive.

If you forgot to attach your files to your post, please do NOT create a new thread. Instead, reply to your original message and attach the file there.

When attaching screen shots, it is best to attach an image file (.BMP, .JPG, .GIF, .PNG, etc.) or a zip file of several images, as opposed to a Word document containing the screen shots. Because Word documents are prone to viruses, many message board users will not open your Word file, therefore limiting their ability to help you.

Similarly, if you are uploading a zipped archive, you should simply create a .ZIP file and not a self-extracting .EXE as many users will not run your EXE file.
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Problems Loading Form

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    #1

    Problems Loading Form

    Hey all,

    The tech support parts of alphasoftware.com are apparently broken and I don't feel like paying all kinds of money for what should be an easy question so I turn to your expert opinions first.

    We have just installed this software. Ver 4.03. DBF database. 3 computers on a network (MS Windows 98 peer-to-peer, full access). One table, One form that contains almost all the fields from that table (for simple data entry).

    Form opens find on local machine.

    On either of the client machines (using Shadow database "Optimize for Network" or whatever it was called) I can open and browse the table fine. It will not open the forms though. I get the error:

    "Default form full. Not all fields will be displayed."
    "Warning: Cannot load specified form "NTI_Entry." Using a default form instead."

    And it opens a form that looks like the one created by the standard wizard - which doesn't hold all my fields.

    Trying to Edit form (on client) gives us "Bad Block Handle."

    I have seen a post about this message and it was supposedly solved by re-creating the form. I just spent the last hour doing that and it didn't help.

    Trying to Preview gives us an error message and tells us to check the Trace Window. Trace gives a different message each time but basically says it cannot load the form, using default form because "Object "S[unprintable character]" renamed to "XXX[the name of an actual object, usually a label]"

    Any help would be appreciated. This is my first exposure to Alpha 5. I used Access quite a bit, but it has been a couple of years. I am also not a network expert, so if it is something to do with that, please be gentle.

    Thanks everyone.

    Sean

    [email protected]

    Tags: None
    #2
    RE: Problems Loading Form

    If it's a bad OBJECT handle it refers to a bad item on the form. Since it's a bad BLOCK handle, ny guess woiuld be that the data dictionary got corrupted someway. If you haven't tried it, try Database Compact (under File on the menu when in the control panel). No one else can be in while you do this. Database compact fixes all sorts of things. If you have a memo field in the table that might have become corrupted it could "scrambl" your stuff (one had previously moved out field rules around, etc)?

    Comment

      #3
      RE: Problems Loading Form

      Thanks Jim. I tried Compact and it did (compact the database that is). Same error on the client machines when I went back in though. I will give it another try tomorrow.

      Does anyone know if there is a limit to the number of fields you can have on a form? Like I said, one table, one form so it is quite lengthy. I hope that isn't the issue.

      Sean

      Comment

        #4
        RE: Problems Loading Form

        We have a form of up to nearly 100 drop boxes and a number of other objects, and a few others with close to that many mixed check boxes, drop boxes, and "normal" entry fields.

        Comment

          #5
          RE: Problems Loading Form

          Is your database located entirely within a single subdirectory or folder?

          If not, you may have path problems that make it impossible for the shadowed databases to 'find' the forms.

          Next idea, try loading Alpha Five at one of the work stations, and the 'opening' the database on the 'server'. Are the forms still inaccessible?

          Sometimes folks get confused about what goes where when getting started. Here's how I do it:

          1) Alpha Five program files get installed on all workstations. It's not necessary to install them on the server, unless you plan to do development work or actually run the app from there.

          2) Create new folder for each database. Put it on the server.

          3) Load A5 from each work station. Open the database 'on the server' and network optimize back to the workstation. Do not 'copy' the database files from the server to the local work station.

          4) Thereafter, load A5 from each work station and open the shadowed database.

          Hope this helps.

          -- tom

          Comment

            #6
            RE: Problems Loading Form - resolved, more or less

            > Is your database located entirely within a single subdirectory or folder?

            Yes

            > Next idea, try loading Alpha Five at one of the work stations, and the 'opening' the database on the 'server'. Are the forms still inaccessible?

            Yes

            > 1) Alpha Five program files get installed on all workstations. It's not necessary to install them on the server, unless you plan to do development work or actually run the app from there.
            2) Create new folder for each database. Put it on the server.
            3) Load A5 from each work station. Open the database 'on the server' and network optimize back to the workstation. Do not 'copy' the database files from the server to the local work station.
            4) Thereafter, load A5 from each work station and open the shadowed database.

            Right. Exactly what I did. Didn't work.

            I do have an update - it is now working. I still don't know what was wrong, or how to fix it, but I have a workaround.

            Actually it is the opposite of Toms #3 above. After I Refresh my shadow database, I take the files containing the form designs that I have copied onto a floppy and copy them to the local/client machine. Open up my shadow database (with these new files) and presto - it works.

            This leads me to believe that a pointer is created on the form referencing the database. When it is moved over in the shadow process it becomes invalid. That's all I can come up with. I haven't looked into it any further - it is meeting our needs at the moment and I am not a database designer by trade (anymore) it is just a project I had to do here.

            Anyway, thanks for your suggestions gang. I hope this helps anyone else who has this trouble in the future.

            Thanks,

            Sean

            ------------------------------------------------------------
            Sean Barry
            Forensics Lab Assistant and Product Support

            New Technologies, Inc.
            2075 NE Division
            Gresham, OR 97030
            (503) 661 6912
            (503) 674 9145 - fax
            ------------------------------------------------------------
            Visit our web sites at www.forensics-intl.com or www.secure-data.com for more software and training information. NTI is an Armor Holdings company. NYSE: AH

            Comment

              #7
              RE: Problems Loading Form

              My wife is working on a tabbed form which has disappeared twice after reconstructing it. The message she gets when trying to re-open the form is, "default form full", then "Using a default form instead."

              Any ideas??

              Comment

                #8
                RE: Problems Loading Form - resolved, more or less

                Sean,

                You stated: "We have just installed this software. Ver 4.03. DBF database."

                You might want to consider upgrading to v4.5. It will be worthwhile and the purchase price can be applied to v5 when that is released.

                kenn
                TYVM :) kenn

                Knowing what you can achieve will not become reality until you imagine and explore.

                Comment

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