>I know a couple of reasons that a table can get trashed, garbage characters instead of valid data, like a user turning off a computer without exiting the application, power outage, etc. Here's the situation...
>
>A network (Netware 4.x) VFP application with the tables on the server, workstations running Windows 95/Client32. Memo files have been trashed infrequently in the past, but recently they have been getting trashed more often. And now other fields, not memo, are starting to show up with garbage characters. We have done all of the regular trouble shooting things, FoxFix, reindexing, etc. However, it has occured again. The users have been thoroughly instructed to exit the application, no power outages have occured recently, etc.

My experiences with NetWare 4.1x have been less than pleasant; I've traced most of the trouble to Novell's Client32 software. My experiences have shown that under a variety of circumstances, the use of Packet Burst and Write Caching at the local station can cause corruption and accidental misassociation of data across file handles under the Novell Clients, at least through Client32 release 2.5Z. In addition, any use of File COmpression at the server end will result in significant file corruption and loss of cache coherency for all stations attached to that server either directly or via NDS, and the cache issues won't clear until the server is reset.

I strongly recommend taking the performance hit (and less pretty interface) and using Microsoft's Client for NetWare and NDS support; I've had far fewer problems, and Microsoft has been more helpful in tracking down problems than Novell, especially where there is a suspicion that the NOS may be fully or in part to blame with the problem. I've gone so far as to refuse to move our in-house Novell servers to 4.11; instead, we've upgraded from 3.12 to 3.20, and if I have anything to say about it, we'll move to a pure NT environment next.

Try switching to the Microsoft Client and see if the problems clear up.