Memo fields - saving to wrong record

[Steve Wood]

A client reported this to me, so this is second hand info. Says when they save a record (which has a memo field) that the most recent text additions to the memo field is copied to another record's memo field. Sometimes the same memo field, sometimes a different memo field. They end up with the same typed information on TWO records. They are networked with multiusers on Alpha v6 Runtimes.

Wanted to get on the right track - has anyone experienced similar goofyness regarding memo fields? Indexing issues?

Thanks

[Phil Rolf]

RE: Memo fields - saving to wrong record

Steve, I have seen similar actions but it was not necessarily linked to the memo field, it would happen with any field. I have a set that has about 6 tables. After creating and saving the record, if I go to a table within the set that is beyond a table that has no data, when I do a modify the data will be placed in the record before the record that I wanted the data to be entered. I hope this makes sense. In short I have only seen it happen with sets, not individual tables.

[stephde]

RE: Memo fields - saving to wrong record

Steve,

My client is experiencing the same problem in a multi-user environment. Pieces of memo fields are being concatenated to other memo fields on other records. I cannot find any pattern to it. My client is getting frustrated because they are sending orders and purchase orders out to customers and vendors with information that is not pertinent.

Neither are we able to readily re-create the problem. It appears to be totally random. It is not limited to one user's memo fields appearing in other memo fields for the same user, but is often pieces of different users memo fields appearing in others memo fields.

Does anyone out there have a solution to this?

[CALocklin]

RE: Memo fields - saving to wrong record

I haven't seen this specific issue but I've had other issues with data on networked systems ending up in someone else's record.

I'm not sure I've actually eliminated the problem but I'm confident that it has been greatly reduced by requiring everyone to upgrade to at least 512 RAM. Maybe more is still needed.

I suppose another possibility is a bad LAN card.

Cal Locklin
www.aimsdc.net

[stephde]

RE: Memo fields - saving to wrong record

Cal,

All the workstations and laptops have 512K RAM. I played around with the memo_check("v",.f.) function for the table, but it comes back clean.

I have not been compacting the database for each release. Might this have any impact on the memo fields?

Deene

[Steve Wood]

RE: Memo fields - saving to wrong record

If this is a real problem, it would be good to put together some facts and present to Alpha engineers(although it looks difficult to provide something they can reproduce in the lab). Has someone already done this? I have the information second hand, and not very close to the client that has the issue - can someone else here take this to Alpha?

[martinwcole]

RE: Memo fields - saving to wrong record

I'm not sure if this will help, but I have always had to occasionally deal with this issue sice 4.0. Each scenario is different, of course, but here's an example. I open a second form as a dialog, get entry, and when they come back it would sometimes jump to a different record. So, on the button, first I get the record number, and when they come back, if the record number of the current parent has changed, I fetch the original record number.

Although this is less than ideal, you might try getting the current record number at the onchange event, and check the record numbers at the cansaverecord event. You would have to toy around with it.

[Peter.Greulich]

RE: Memo fields - saving to wrong record

Check out Peter Wayne's article: Memo Fields that work.

The cardinal rule in editing/entering memos is to absolutely, positively disable navigation of the form. Dialogs should work, as does:

form.restrict_navigation = .t.

Even w. dialogs you MUST disable navigation one way or the other.

But the best method IMHO is:

vMode = parentform.mode_get()

IF vMode = "CHANGE" .or. vMode = "ENTER"
parentform.commit()
END IF

tbl = table.current()
p.text=tbl.Memo

vChoice = a5_memo_editor(p,"Xbasic Scripts & Tips")

IF vChoice = "save"
tbl.change_begin()
tbl.Memo = p.text
tbl.change_end(.t.)
Memox.refresh()
END IF

There is a similar method for RTF memos (but more complex). If anyone is interested, let me know.

Peter

[stephde]

RE: Memo fields - saving to wrong record

Martin,

I have experienced this problem, too, but it is a different problem than that of memo fields ending up with more lines of text in them than the user entered.

Like you, I solved the problem of the base form getting refreshed to the original record when you return from a modal form by rerunning the query. I just used:

topparrent.BaseQueryRun(query.filter,query.order)

with a new filter expression for the newly created record.

[stephde]

RE: Memo fields - saving to wrong record

Hi everyone,

Let me explain the problem as it has occurred in my application.

The line item form in my application has many fields, including a field that is a memo field.

User 1 saves a line item via the detail form with a memo field that is 15 lines of text long (The memo has carriage returns so it is 15 lines and not wrapped text).

User 2 saves a line item with a memo field that is only 6 lines long. However, when this line item memo field is retrieved (or printed on a report) later on, it contains the original 6 lines PLUS the last 9 lines of User 1's memo field.

As my table only contains the date created and not the time, I cannot determine if they occurred on or about the same time of day. One scenario that I can think of is that A5 may be saving both in a close time period where the first memo field is saved and the buffer is not cleared or the buffer length is not reset when the second memo field is saved. Consequently, the remainder of the first user's memo field ends up being saved in the second user's memo field.

Deene

[Tom Cone Jr]

RE: Memo fields - saving to wrong record

Are you using Windows XP?

Have you disabled opportunistic locking?

-- tom

[Daniel Weiss]

RE: Memo fields - saving to wrong record

Originally I used to have many problems with memo fields but not last few years since I followed Peter Wayne�s suggestion of keeping the memo field in a separate table (as a Child table) and in V4 before X-Dialog the only way the user was able to enter anything to a memo field was by clicking on a button which opened a form containing a variable where the user would enter the memo value and closing the form it would save it via X-basic to the memo table, in other the user never could open the table directly. In V5 & V6 I use an X-Dialog to do it. Since I used this technique I don�t recall any complaint�s from my clients on memo�s

Here is an example of the memo table and X-dialog I use for my Order Entry tables
Note memo�s have an option to automatically add the users (logdin) name and the user can also select on which report the memo�s should print

See Attached Picture

The memo table structure;

Ord_No Character 10 0
Ship_Memo Memo 10 0
Order_Memo Memo 10 0
Recored Logical 1 0
P_Sm_P Logical 1 0
P_Sm_I Logical 1 0
P_Om_P Logical 1 0
P_Om_I Logical 1 0
Norder_Memo Memo 10 0
Ord_No2 Character 6 0
Memo1 Memo 10 0
Memo2 Memo 10 0
Print_M1 Logical 1 0

The script;

'Date Created: 24-Mar-2003 02:38:49 PM
'Last Updated: 08-Nov-2004 10:05:46 AM
'Created By : Daniel Weiss
'Updated By : Daniel Weiss

msg1 = "Ez Link Was Unable To Retrieve The Order #, Try Again"
if eval_valid("ord")=.f.
ui_msg_box("EZ Link",msg1,UI_ATTENTION_SYMBOL+UI_OK)
end
end if
if .not. eval_valid("use_memo_signature")
dim global use_memo_signature as l
end if

DIM ordnote as C
DIM shipnote as C
DIM old_ordnote as C
DIM old_shipnote as C
dim pomi as L
dim psmi as L
dim pomp as L
dim psmp as L
dim old_pomi as L
dim old_psmi as L
dim old_pomp as L
dim old_psmp as L
DIM ordmemo as C
ord_rec = table.external_record_content_get("inv_memo","\"\"+recno()","recno()","ord_no = "+quote(ord)+")")
if ord_rec != ""
tmemo = table.open("inv_memo")
tmemo.fetch_goto(val(ord_rec))
ordnote = tmemo.Order_Memo
shipnote = tmemo.Ship_Memo
old_ordnote = ordnote
old_shipnote = shipnote
pomi = tmemo.P_Om_I
psmi = tmemo.P_Sm_I
pomp = tmemo.P_Om_P
psmp = tmemo.P_Sm_P
old_pomi = pomi
old_psmi = psmi
old_pomp = pomp
old_psmp = psmp
tmemo.close()
end if

head1 = "{B=Dirty White}{C=Dark Red}{J=CT}{F=Arial,8,B}ORDER MEMO"
head2 = "{B=Dirty White}{C=Dark Red}{J=CT}{F=Arial,8,B}SHIPPING MEMO"
ins = "{B=Dirty White}{C=Black}{J=C}{F=Arial,8,B}Press the Tab Key to activate the Save button"
ok_button_label = "&OK"
cancel_button_label = "&Cancel"
ordmemo = ui_dlg_box("Order Notes",""%dlg%
{background=Dirty White}{justify=top,center}{region}{font=aril,8,b}{on_key=tab}
Print on Invoice Slips? (pomi){text=%O={@@}%18,1.5:head1} Print on Shipping Slips? (pomp);
[%mw%.80,8ordnote];{lf};
Print on Invoice Slips? (psmi){text=%O={@@}%18,1.5:head2} Print on Shipping Slips? (psmp);
[%mw%.80,8shipnote];
{endregion};
{justify=left}{line=1,0};
{justify=center,top}{region}
"%T= Save;O={J=C}{I:'$a5_save'} Save %15,2!save_button_click?old_ordnote!=ordnote.or.old_shipnote!=shipnote.or.old_pomi!=pomi.or.old_psmi!=psmi.or.old_pomp!=pomp.or.old_psmp!=psmp"
"%T= Cancel;O={J=C}{I:'$a5_record_cancel'} Cancel %15,2!Cancel_button_click ";
{condition=version()"5}
{text=%O={@@}%70,1.5:ins?old_ordnote!=ordnote.or.old_shipnote!=shipnote.or.old_pomi!=pomi.or.old_psmi!=psmi.or.old_pomp!=pomp.or.old_psmp!=psmp}
{condition=.t.}
{endregion};
%dlg%,""%code%
if a_dlg_button = "tab"
if version() " 5
sys_send_keys("{TAB}")
ui_dlg_ctl_goto("Order Notes","save_button_click")
end if
a_dlg_button = ""
end if
%code%)

if ordmemo = "save_button_click"
topparent.restrict_enter=.f.
topparent.restrict_change = .f.
tmemo = table.open("inv_memo")
if use_memo_signature
if old_ordnote "" ordnote
ordnote = ordnote + "~entered by "+user_name()+" on "+TIME("MM/dd/yy 0h:0mam",NOW())+"~"
end if
if old_shipnote "" shipnote
shipnote = shipnote + "~entered by "+user_name()+" on "+TIME("MM/dd/yy 0h:0mam",NOW())+"~"
end if
end if
if ord_rec != ""
tmemo.fetch_goto(val(ord_rec))
tmemo.change_begin()
tmemo.Order_Memo = ordnote
tmemo.Ship_Memo = shipnote
tmemo.P_Om_I = pomi
tmemo.P_Sm_I = psmi
tmemo.P_Om_P = pomp
tmemo.P_Sm_P = psmp
tmemo.change_end(.t.)
else
tmemo.enter_begin()
tmemo.ord_no = ord
tmemo.Order_Memo = ordnote
tmemo.Ship_Memo = shipnote
tmemo.P_Om_I = pomi
tmemo.P_Sm_I = psmi
tmemo.P_Om_P = pomp
tmemo.P_Sm_P = psmp
tmemo.enter_end(.t.)
end if
tmemo.close()
topparent.restrict_enter=.t.
topparent.restrict_change = .t.
entrystatus = ""
topparent.command("REFRESH")
end if

[stephde]

RE: Memo fields - saving to wrong record

Tom,

I had to send some emails to our network support people to get the answers to your questions. The server is running Windows 2003 and the Workstations Windows XP. Opportunistic locking is disabled.

Deene