Index Destruction on a network

[Bob Whitaker]

We have one client site where the indexes in the main table are frequently corrupted or totally destroyed. Everybody claims to be doing all the right things. App works fine on several other sites so am looking for something peculiar to this network which is a Windows 2000 server with a mixture of XP and Win98 on the desktop. Any ideas will be gratefully received.

Bob Whitaker

[Tom Cone Jr]

RE: Index Destruction on a network

Bob,

Look for things that will disrupt or slow down the flow of data over their LAN.

Likely candidates:

1) power outages;
2) faulty cabling and / or connectors;
3) old, faulty, network interface cards;
4) underpowered machines attempting to multi-task other large apps while doing data entry with Alpha Five.

-- tom

[Tom Cone Jr]

RE: Index Destruction on a network

Bob,

Another potential issue:

1) an app that uses filtered indexes;
2) a user who hasn't upgraded to A5v4.5

-- tom

[Bob Whitaker]

RE: Index Destruction on a network

Tom
Thanks for the input, they are pretty well the items I was going to check. Yes they do all have 4.5 patch 266 which is the last I think.
The only item I have a real problem with is the issue of filtered indexes. Whilst we don't exlicitly create filtered indexes the system does when we create filtered look ups on the main table. I don't see any alternative to this approach but would welcome suggestions.An example would be when we want to enter a record for a customer payment we want to use a lookup from the main table to correctly fill in all the info on the payment record but we only want the lookup to contain those clients who have an outstanding account - hence the filter on the lookup which in turn creates a filtered index expression. I have to ask the question - if filtered indexes are so suspect why allow them in the first place ?

Thanks anyway and looking forward to seeing you at the conference.

Bob

[Tom Cone Jr]

RE: Index Destruction on a network

Bob,

I recall that filtered lookups were the subject of much discussion in this forum. You might search for relevant threads to see if there are alternatives short of moving your inactive customers / vendors to a different table and using an UN_filtered lookup into the actives...

-- tom

[Tom Cone Jr]

RE: Index Destruction on a network

Also,

my advice to anyone using Win98 boxes is to turn them off (power down) each night, and do weekly scandisks. I think Win98 requires a lot of maintenance to work effectively on a LAN and most users simply don't do it. -- tom