Alpha Software Mobile Development Tools:   Alpha Anywhere    |   Alpha TransForm subscribe to our YouTube Channel  Follow Us on LinkedIn  Follow Us on Twitter  Follow Us on Facebook

Announcement

Collapse

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:
  • Be professional in your conduct
  • Be kind to others
  • Be constructive when giving feedback
  • Be open to new ideas and suggestions
  • Stay on topic


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:
  • Spam.
  • Vulgar language.
  • Quotes from private conversations without permission, including pricing and other sales related discussions.
  • Personal attacks, insults, or subtle put-downs.
  • Harassment, bullying, threatening, mocking, shaming, or deriding anyone.
  • Sexist, racist, homophobic, transphobic, ableist, or otherwise discriminatory jokes and language.
  • Sexually explicit or violent material, links, or language.
  • Pirated, hacked, or copyright-infringing material.
  • Encouraging of others to engage in the above behaviors.


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:
  • Remove the Post or Thread - the content is removed from the forum.
  • Place the User in Moderation - all posts and new threads must be approved by a moderator before they are posted.
  • Temporarily Ban the User - user is banned from forum for a period of time.
  • Permanently Ban the User - user is permanently banned from the forum.


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.

Threads/Posts questioning specific moderator decisions or actions (such as "why was a user banned?") are not allowed and will be removed.

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.
See more
See less

Missing Encryption Key

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

    Missing Encryption Key

    Hi,
    I have a total of 25 TABLES in my database. All tables are encrypted. Today one the tables will not open. A5 reports that the encryption key is different. How can the encryption of one table out of 25 other tables suddenly change by it self. Has anyone encountered this problem before. Is there a fix for this kind of problem in A5V5 or A5V7. I have compacted, decrypted & encrypted my database but to no avail. Any ideas or suggestions will be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

    RAWLINGS

    #2
    Isn't this similar to an earlier thread where you were advised...
    RE: ENCRYPTION KEY PROBLEM

    --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    Every dbf file has a header that contains information about the file. The information includes things like the number of records contained in the dbf, does it have a related memo file, the date it was last opened and if it's encrypted or not. The encryption info is a single byte in the file header. You can only see this with a hex editor.

    It's possible that a dbf header could be corrupted and return the "encrypted with a different key" error without the corruption necessarily having anything to do with encryption.

    Have you tried opening the dbf's with another program like Exel?

    There are also programs available (from $50 - $150, Google Corrupt DBF Fix) that claim to be able to repair corrupted dbfs. If you can't open these files at all you could download the evaluation version of one of these fix programs and run it against the corrupted dbfs. The evaluation versions will show you the first 50 records of a fixed file so you can see if it works on your files and be justified in spending the money.
    There can be only one.

    Comment


      #3
      Re: Encryption Key Problem

      Hi Stan,
      I tried the approach by downloading the suggested programs but these progarms will not fix an encrypted DBF's/TABLE. This is why I reposted this problem. A5 should find a solution for this kind of problem. A5 has a function to repair a SET & function to repair a MEMO file. Why can they have one to fix a damaged TABLE. I will not invest my money in Version 7 if a TABLE repair utility is not present in it. Thanks.

      RAWLINGS

      Comment


        #4
        Rawlings, why not use the Wishlist Forum and suggest this enhancement to Alpha?

        -- tom

        Comment


          #5
          Missing Encryption Key

          Hi Tom,
          I have suggested this feature on Alpha five wish list early this year. I do hope that a table repair tool/function is included in version 7. It is very important that tables in any alpha five database are always in top condition. To reach this goal, developers & users alike most be provided with all options/tools/functions to solve any problem that may affect any table in an Alpha Five database. I am still waiting to see a more detailed information of "What is new in version 7" documentation. I am also interested to know how many items on the "Alpha Five Wish List" was included in version 7. I am sure that I & others who contributed to the Alpha Five Wish List Forum will really like to know if Apha Software is really paying attention or reading the wish list. Thanks.

          RAWLINGS

          Comment


            #6
            We do pay attention to the wish list forum. Whether or not we implement any of the suggestions depends on a variaety of factors such as customer demand, applicability to our core direction and other general business considerations.

            Some of the suggested features were released as free upgrades in V6 patches. Some were added to V7. Some will be added to V8. Some will never be added.

            V7 will not include any new table repair utilities. I do not know if it will be added in any future releases.

            Originally posted by Rawlings
            Hi Tom,
            I have suggested this feature on Alpha five wish list early this year. I do hope that a table repair tool/function is included in version 7. It is very important that tables in any alpha five database are always in top condition. To reach this goal, developers & users alike most be provided with all options/tools/functions to solve any problem that may affect any table in an Alpha Five database. I am still waiting to see a more detailed information of "What is new in version 7" documentation. I am also interested to know how many items on the "Alpha Five Wish List" was included in version 7. I am sure that I & others who contributed to the Alpha Five Wish List Forum will really like to know if Apha Software is really paying attention or reading the wish list. Thanks.

            RAWLINGS

            Lenny Forziati
            Vice President, Internet Products and Technical Services
            Alpha Software Corporation

            Comment


              #7
              Re: Missing Encryption Key

              -------------------------------------------------------------------------
              LENNY WROTE:
              "V7 will not include any new table repair utilities. I do not know if it will be added in any future releases."
              -------------------------------------------------------------------------

              Hi Lenny,
              You said V7 will not include any new table repair utilities. Can you mention any old/existing table repair utilities or function that currently exist in Alpha five. You guys have a function to repair a SET and another function to repair a MEMO file how about one to repair a TABLE. An alpha five database, sets, etc depends on TABLES to function properly. If anything goes wrong with these tables the database, sets, forms, users, etc will suffer. The table headers in alpha five TABLES is shaky & vunerable to damage. This explains why an ecrypted TABLE will suddenly loose its encryption key which is stored in the DBF header. I & other users have reported this problem in the past & another client of my had a similar problem just last month. Lenny, I do not accept your response. I & other people who reported this problem or contributed to the current thread or past thread are alpha five customers. We demand a product that is not just good looking & easy to develop & use but also reliable & have the tools to solve any problem that may occur. Alpha five currently does not have any tool or utility to repair a damaged table or a damaged table header in its database. This is a tool that all alpha five developers/customers/users will like to have to ensure recovery from table problems which occurs all the time. Please Lenny, consider a table repair tool/function a must for Version 7. I need it & other developers/users need it too. Thanks

              RAWLINGS
              Last edited by Rawlings; 10-07-2005, 05:38 PM.

              Comment


                #8
                Rawlings, as a contributor to this thread I ask that you refrain from putting words in my mouth. I'm not an apologist for Alpha Software, but happen to disagree with you in this instance.

                The kind of problem you experienced seems to have occurred because of a hardware failure, due to a sudden power loss (if I recall correctly). I do not think it's fair to say that this kind of problem "occurs all the time." Thankfully, this is rarely encountered even though it "could" happen at any time, to any of us.

                Given the pricing of Alpha Five it is not reasonable to expect it to supply the tools necessary to literally "solve any problem that may occur." The simple truth is that when we deploy Alpha Five we know (or should know) that we are assuming the risk of possible data loss due to our own hardware failures. We are responsible for our data when our own equipment misbehaves.

                Most of us cover this risk by implementing a backup system that permits our applications to continue to function when the occasional hardware failure occurs. I fear that any solution that Alpha could develop that would "solve any problem that may occur" would be prohibitively expensive. I doubt that there's a single vendor in the industry that will guarantee a recovery solution for "any problem that might occur", regardless of cost.

                -- tom

                Comment


                  #9
                  Hi Rawlings,

                  I have experienced this before as well. It may be too late for you, but one thing I always do before I encrypt a table is make a back up. A back up of un-ecrypted tables. I can not stress that enough!

                  I was able to just delete the table and copy my back up table into the database. -- I first decrypt all the tables, then delete the bad table, then add my backup copy. Then again made a backup. Then encrypt the tables.

                  Have Fun,

                  Dan

                  Dan Blank Databases, Inc.
                  Last edited by Dan Blank; 10-07-2005, 11:14 PM.
                  Dan

                  Dan Blank builds Databases
                  Skype: danblank

                  Comment

                  Working...
                  X