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Refresh Shadow error with unavailable dbf

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    Refresh Shadow error with unavailable dbf

    I had a database that had a table in it's adb table listing that was located in another directory (different from the adb). At some point the directory was moved or deleted, so the Control Panel listed this as "Not available" under the Modified column.

    I shadowed this database, and everything went OK. It created an entry for this unavailable table in the shadowed version.

    Later, I tried an XBasic refresh_shadow() and got the following error message box

    Error

    An error ocurred while refreshing the Network Optimized Database. The system cannot find the file specified.
    C:\Program Files\A5V7\xxx\abc.DDX

    There are 3 problems here:
    1. ocurred is spelled wrong!:)
    2. The Optimize should either not shadow an unavailable table, or should have shadowed it, but in someway mark the the dictionaries were not available or indicate that it should try to use the actual table.
    3. If the DDX file wasn't available during the optimize, it's not going to be there during the refresh. We need to be consistent so that drives that go off line (particularly removable drives), do not cause problems.

    Errors not withstanding, can others duplicate this and does anybody have any other opinions as to the proper course of action that A5 should apply in this situation? I think Alpha shadow process should allow specifying shadow and unshadowed tables and sets.
    Regards,

    Ira J. Perlow
    Computer Systems Design


    CSDA A5 Products
    New - Free CSDA DiagInfo - v1.39, 30 Apr 2013
    CSDA Barcode Functions

    CSDA Code Utility
    CSDA Screen Capture



    #2
    Interesting you should bring this up now. I just had a similar problem this morning.

    My personal opinion is that both the network optimize and the refresh should NOT copy any table/set info from the master adb to the shadowed adb if the physical file is not available. (I'm open to arguments on this but it seems the most logical to me right now.)

    In my particular case, I have a "new orders" table that gets downloaded daily from the internet but is not distributed with the application itself. For the purpose of debugging a client's problems when using the runtime (should they occur) I wanted the downloaded file to be included in the A5 control panel so I added a File_add_to_db() function after a successful download. Once the new data is imported, the file is deleted. (The deletion is part of an overall procedure that insures the user has properly imported the previous orders before downloading the next batch.) The deletion of the table caused a problem with the refresh optimize routine.

    Solving the immediate problem was a bit awkward because I had to send an update to the .alm files where the autoexec would first check for the existence of the file and run the File_drop_from_db() command if it wasn't there. Since the refresh optimize wouldn't work correctly to start with, I had them install the new files on each workstation and start the workstation once then sent them the "real" update with a new network optimize number to be installed on the server.

    Solving this for future issues was fairly easy. I just added a File_drop_from_db() after the file is deleted. Later.... Hmmm, this may not work after all. The File_drop will only work on the computer that it is run from. Maybe the "add_to_db" needs to be added to the autoexec and the "drop" needs to be in the CanDatabaseClose script.

    Anyway, this is not the first time I've had this problem. It can waste a lot of time when it happens on a customer's computer and I have to find a way to get it working again.

    Comment


      #3
      Ira and Cal,

      Very interesting. I am trying to leave on a 2 week vacation and just got a call from a client experiencing at least a similar issue. The table in question was in a "foreign" folder--actually an extremely foriegn folder (on a workstation's desktop rather than on the server!). In this case the table actually existed but apparently none of the other workstations could see it when they went to refresh. Of course this situation should not have existed in the first place, but try telling that to the client.

      As for the problem you guys experienced, I wonder if the Delete/Re-Create Shadow DB rountine I posted a while back:

      http://msgboard.alphasoftware.com/al...ad.php?t=59167

      would have handled it. I don't have time right now to check that out.

      Ray

      Comment


        #4
        Ray,

        Your routine would do a fresh optimize each time (no error messages would happen), and thus would copy the table as an entry in the shadowed version, but no real table would exist and no DDX would be there.

        But the issue is the whether the table should have been shadowed in the 1st place? A table could validly need to be offline (and hence it's support files at times). There may be reasons that I might not want a table to be shadowed as well (e.g. I want to have access at times via an occasional network connection, e.g. salespeople on the road returning with data).
        Regards,

        Ira J. Perlow
        Computer Systems Design


        CSDA A5 Products
        New - Free CSDA DiagInfo - v1.39, 30 Apr 2013
        CSDA Barcode Functions

        CSDA Code Utility
        CSDA Screen Capture


        Comment


          #5
          This bug is around for a while also in v6, I reported it to Selwyn a short while ago
          Daniel Weiss
          EZ Link Software

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