>About once a day, depending on how much I use Visual FoxPro 9.0 SP2, I see my form (whichever one I am working on) suddenly "freak out" and I can't save it properly. This problem causes Visual FoxPro to "hang up", so that my only choice is to end the program (VFP).
>
>However, I have been able to recover from the mess-up of the Form. One of two things will happen:
>
>(1) The Form recovers as VFP is closed.
>or,
>(2) The Form's Memo File (SCT) is saved as a "TMP" file, with random numbers for the file name. Example: "AB345678.TMP".
>
>So, in the case of # 2, I rename the Memo File back to the Form's original name, and give it the extension of SCT. It seems that the main Form file (.SCX) never has a problem. It's always the Memo file (.SCT), which has the problem and sometimes is named with a random file name, with extension .TMP.
>
>Is anyone else having this problem, or am I the only recipient of this problem? Is there any way to stop this from happening, such as some configuration setting?

I believe this can happen if some other program is trying to access the files. For example, I had the same symptoms after I started to use DropBox - a service that allows me to syncronize files with other people. The files are updated automatically to some online server; so the other person doesn't have to be online at the same time as I. The service is free for up to 2 GB shared data; there are also paid options.

Anyway, I have come to the conclusion that at some part of the saving process, DropBox starts updating some file - perhaps the SCT file, perhaps the Temp file, I am not quite sure which - before Visual FoxPro can finish saving (saving pressumably involves renaming and deleting some temporary files). And, pressumably, DropBox briefly blocks the file for access. Visual FoxPro doesn't handle this situation too elegantly (it might retry, after all...), and these problems appear.

For this reason, I often disable DropBox while I am programming, and enable it later.

I also noticed that I can recover the lost file (a) from the DropBox Web site, or (even easier), (b) from the .tmp file created by Visual FoxPro. This is usually the form memo file (SCT).

HTH,

Hilmar.