>The other day I started getting very strange behavior in Visual Fox Express. (I couldn't see one index on a file which I knew was there in the data environment designer.) This eventually led me to the following command:
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>open database Mass1 validate
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>Lo and behold: I was told that my DBC was not valid! So I restored from the previous nights backup. Also not valid! The day before that--not valid! Two weeks ago--not valid! After freaking out for a few hours I realized that the immediate problem was not present during most of the two weeks so perhaps I was chasing a red herring. I wnet back to my day-old backup and after bringing it current I did not have the problem with the vanishing index.
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>So I have a functioning system but VFP still says I have an invalid DBC.
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>Question #1: Is there some quick fix for this?
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>Question #2: Can I live with an invalid DBC?
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>During my freak-out phase, I set about finding out what it would take to make the Mass1 DBC valid. I started deleting tables (from a test copy, of course) and after deleting 9 tables I could validate the database. Hurray, the problem must be with the last table I deleted!
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>So I restored the database and deleted the last table above. Still invalid!! I kept deleting tables and after deleting 9 tables (in a different order) I could validate.
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>I tried again in a new order. Not valid until the ninth table was gone!
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>I tried deleting some of the other 40 tables in the database while leaving the "Dirty Nine". Still invalid even with only one (1) table left (one of the dirty nine.)
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>I added another table (one of the dirty nine) and deleted the other one. Valid!
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>Now, I'm not anxious to delete and restore these 9 tables from my production system which would mean researching and restoring default values, etc. for some 100-200 fields.
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>Any suggestions?
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>Peter Robinson

I just had a problem with my database and they gave me a command to fix it. I think it was VALIDATE DATABASE RECOVER. You need to have the DB open to use this.

-Michelle