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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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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.

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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
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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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URGENT HELP REQUEST

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    #1

    URGENT HELP REQUEST

    Hi...

    As mentioned in an earlier post...I'm new to using Alpha5.V6...

    As indicated in earlier posts...I'm having some serious issues with the product performance.

    Problem #1 is an excessive start-up and loading time...on average 10 to 15 minutes.

    Problem#2: Inability to E-Mail Reports. Receive error message indicating that the attachment file cannot be found.

    Most recent observations and issues:

    When I attempt to save a Report file to disk, regardless of format selected, the file is not being saved. A full hard-drive file search does not find it...and it is not being saved in the directed location.

    Prior to installing Alpha5.6, I have been using Symnatec's ACT! contact software program.

    Last nite, while searching for a saved report file, I noticed that I have ACT! database files saved in my Alpha5.V6 folder...and these files are apparently attempting to duplicate my Alpha databases. ACT! has it's own Folder within the program files directory to save data files to...so there should be NO ACT! files in my Alpha folder...yet, for every Table in my Alpha5 database, I have a corresponding ACT! database file...though they will not load properly.

    I'm totally confused at this point. I would guess that there is an apparent conflict...or whatever...that I am clueless about resolving. I have a significant amount of important data in both....

    I would appreciate all input or assistance with this problem.

    Thanks,

    Phil

    Tags: None
    #2
    RE: URGENT HELP REQUEST

    Phil,

    The 10 to 15 minutes load time I can't explain. You don't mention what type of machine that you are running Alpha on but I am sure that you have looked carefully at the system requirements.

    As for the ACT files in your Alpha folders, this is not true. I would bet that you are making this statement by using windows explorer, or some such program, and it is saying that they are ACT databases. It does this because when you installed ACT it registered in WINDOWS that any file with the extension of .dbf is an ACT database. This is in your windows file associations and has nothing to do with Alpha. You can change the file associations manually as this association would try to launch ACT every time you double click on a dbf file which you probably never have done. Typically a file with the extension of .dbf means that the file is in some form of DBase format - not an ACT database.

    So in short, don't worry about what windows explorer is telling you. Alpha is not mucking around with your Act files.

    Doug

    Comment

      #3
      RE: URGENT HELP REQUEST

      I have to admit that your remarks are a plus...as I did use windows explorer to look for the report file that i saved...and based on your info...i'm guessing that you are correct...actually hoping...as neither database needs to be corrupted at the moment. I'm attempting to track work orders and punch list items in a 12 story condo...with 22 custom 2 million dollar homes, and was attempting to switch that data over from Excel to Alpha...and do so on the fly..without attempting to import data from Excel...just simply pick up where the last file left off.

      What I do not understand is that I have gone to the files menu in the report preview mode, and selected save as...and given the file a unique name....and the file is not being saved to disk...period...it simply is not being created, regardless of the file format selected...pdf...rtf...or whatever...which is probably while attempts to directly email a report from the preview mode is failing...

      Something is seriously amiss...and this start-up delay issue is a real serious issue.

      I'm running XP with 256K...and all other applications start-up with no problems. I would like to have more memory...and plan on adding it...but don't understand why Alpha is not loading in a timely fashion.


      Thanks,

      Phil

      Comment

        #4
        RE: URGENT HELP REQUEST

        Phil,

        There were some loading issue with the 2043 patch. Download and install the 2044 patch. After you have run the install program, open Alpha5 then exit. Now when you start Alpha5 you should notice a serious improvement in the amount of time it takes to open.

        As mentioned in other threads in this forum, XP is using most of your 256mb of memory. You will notice better performance in all of your applications by increasing your memory.

        Jerry Gray

        Comment

          #5
          RE: URGENT HELP REQUEST

          Hi Phil,

          Just checked on my system and found that I can save any report I want and it does save to the directory that I specify every time. Don't know what could be causing you to have a problem. Are you running as a user with administrator rights? You must do this to run Alpha correctly.

          Please make sure that you install 2044. I had installed 2043 only to have my load time increase 3-4 times. I then installed 2044 this afternoon when released and now when I load Alpha the first time it takes approx. 15 secs. After that it loads in less than 10. XP Pro w/512MB.

          As others have mentioned, 256MB is really a low limit for XP (Home or Pro). There are many programs that will load in this memory space but Alpha is a very different animal and cannot be compared to these programs. Alpha is a VERY large and complex package that is many MB's in size. It is this complexity that allows the for the ease of use and yet sophisticated abilities. All the built in intelligence has to go somewhere. So unfortunately, 256MB may be a little shy. However, I cannot understand 10-15 minutes. To me something is not right. Without a lot more information, everything is just a wild guess at this point. I do not have a similar system so I am unable to replicate your situation. Perhaps others who have similar setups will chime in here with their experience.

          Doug

          Comment

            #6
            RE: URGENT HELP REQUEST

            Just had another thought. Have you tried to run Alpha with your virus checker turned off. These programs sometimes slow down many programs and are also resource hogs. Also try to disable or shut down as many other things running on your taskbar as you can and seeing if there is any difference. All those little icons down there represent something else running on your computer. You might also want to watch the task manager and see every process running and what happens as Alpha tries loading.

            Hope something helps.

            Doug

            Comment

              #7
              RE: URGENT HELP REQUEST

              Hi Phil,

              Can you post a zip file? Here's how to do it: Make a copy of your database. Then delete all tables, forms, reports, etc that have no bearing on the issue. If you have sensitive data or a lot of data, remove the data and enter a couple of bogus records, enough to run the report.

              Next, while in the control panel, select Tools and Zip Database. When you post your reply to the message board, scroll to the bottom of the page and include the zipped file. This will allow other's to look at your app and make suggestions.

              kenn
              TYVM :) kenn

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

              Comment

                #8
                RE: URGENT HELP REQUEST

                Hey Ken....

                Here is a zip file...and I didn't delete anything...as this should be a relatively small database so far...and I guess it would take the full working environment to figure out what might be happening.

                Any help you, or anyone else out there could provide would be definitely appreciated.

                Thanks,

                Phil

                Comment

                  #9
                  RE: URGENT HELP REQUEST

                  Phil,

                  I unzipped your database, opened it and created a shortcut via the control panel. Opened it via the shortcut (w/o splash screen), it took about 15 seconds.

                  Can you give some directions as to which form and reports are involved? When opening some of the forms and reports, there is a screen that flashes very brief as the form/report is opening. Have you tried a database compact?

                  kenn
                  TYVM :) kenn

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

                  Comment

                    #10
                    RE: URGENT HELP REQUEST

                    Phil,

                    I believe the issues are directly tied to your pc somehow. I unzipped and loaded your db in less than 5 seconds. I was able to save all reports in rtf and pdf format. That was all I tried. I had no time lags whatsover and no errors anywhere.

                    I would suggest reinstalling V6 and the latest patch 2044. I would also suggest, as has been before, that you ensure you do not have other programs running in the background ... a big one being an anti virus program.

                    With your low RAM these are the only things that may or may not make a difference for you.

                    Good luck
                    Cheryl
                    Cheryl
                    #1 Designs By Pagecrazy
                    http://pagecrazy.com/

                    Comment

                      #11
                      RE: URGENT HELP REQUEST

                      On my end...what I came to realize on Friday, was that when I opened any of the Reports in the Preview mode, clicked on File, Then Save As....the file was not being created.

                      To make sure I wasn't overlooking the file...I named the Save As file "Car54...and then saved out a version in PDF, RTF, and regular text. The files were not where they should have been, and a full disk search with Windows Explorer...did not locate them anywhere on my hard-disk.

                      I did an un-install this morning...am going to reload everything and see what happens from there...and will let you know.

                      Again, thanks to everyone out there!

                      Phil

                      Comment

                        #12
                        RE: URGENT HELP REQUEST

                        Cheryl,

                        I think he means 256MBs RAM, which should be plenty. I don't think XP will even run w. less that 64MBs anyway.

                        Peter
                        Peter
                        AlphaBase Solutions, LLC

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

                        Comment

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