>I guess this is just a VISUAL Fox forum but I know a lot of you all go way back with FoxPro. This is the first time I've seen the Universal Thread - Sweet! I'm doing other stuff these days but get called in to support an old dbase app that is being run in FoxPro for DOS 2.6 (b?). The latest problem is a real stumper!
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>Records are being misteriously marked for deletion when they shouldn't be. EVEN MORE MISTERIOUS - THESE FILES WON'T PACK; NO ERROR - THEY JUST DON'T GO AWAY.
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>Has anyone seen anything like this. I know its not much to go on but I'm at a loss to even know where to start. Very little code has been changed since April '96 and the behavior just started in October '96 (or later). We can't get it to reproduce either but it has happened three times now. Questions have been raised about operating system interference, index corruption, file corruption - you name it. I was leaning towards programming error but the fact that the records won't pack have me scratching my head. They've been running the app under windows - I suggested they stick to DOS for awhile.
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>Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Ok - let's look at the possibilities you mentioend.
1.) Check if the files are corrupt. There are packages out there that can assist you. DbFix, dbSalvage, ... And there may be some free-ware packages available over the net. That may be another question you may want to ask on this forum.
2.) Delete you index files. I have seen some strange things in the past when I had a corrupt index file. Most people do not delete the IDX/CDX file in there re-index routines for FP 2.x apps.
3.) Make sure you have exclusive use of the tables before attempting to PACK. As L mentioned.
4.) What network are you running. I have had some very strange things happen on Vax/Vms Pathworks before. It turned out to be a OS problem that caused my SQL stuff to fail. I had tested my app on a stand-alone PC, NT and Novell network without incident.
5.) Is there any strange configuration issues on the PCs where this problem is occurring. Especially if some of the files are local. Is Share.EXE used?
6.) Is the EXE corrupt? Try a re-build.
Hope this was Helpful (Htwh) Steve
Let me know if any of this stuff helped. It may benefit other users of this forum also to be aware of what your problem was...
7.) The app should run OK under Windows, but if you find that is the only element different, stick to DOS until the problem is resolved...