>>I have a site that is constantly getting currupt indexes on certain large
>>transaction files from time to time.
>>The problem is not persisant but happens often resulting in a lot of
>>downtime to rebuild the indexes.
>>
>>Could u please suggest what the possible causes are or what steps should be
>>done to elimiate this problem. We generally use the 'append from file'
>>command to add records to the transact.dbf which has a number of index
>>tags.
>>
>>The environment is
>>
>> Novel Netware 3.12 / Novel Netware 4.1
>> Windows 95 and MS client for Netware
>> Applications are run in Foxpro 2.6b for Dos Run time.
>>
>>The latest service patches are used for Windows 95 and Netware.
>>
>>It is assumed that the users are not prematurely resetting their machines.
>>
>>Some super users access the data from Foxpro 2.5 and Visual Foxpro to
>>reindex them when files are currupt. Using fpd2.5 may be problem as I
>>recall fpd2.6 fixed a few bugs in it!!!
>>
>>The server did crash a few times. Any currupt tables where fixed using
>>Visual Foxpro or FixFox utility.
>>
>>The server does incremental backups automatically. Could this be the
>>problem with dual access to file?
>>
>>Overnight reindexing is done. I assume this as I have not verified this
>>yet.
>>
>>What setting should be done on the netware side to cater for large foxpro
>>tables. I remember Novell 3.1 had some problems? The patches fixed this.
>>
>>We generally use the 'append from ' command to add transactions from
>>a temp file to the primary transact.dbf transaction file which has a number
>>of indexes. The one tag 'auditno' constantly gets currupt.
>>
>>All replies welcome.
>>
>>Thank you.
>>Gan
>
>
>if you are rebuilding FX2.6 tables with VFP and not specifying that you are building a 2.6 table, the 2.6 .exe program will not recognize the VFP built table as a valid dbf file. Likewise, you must rebuild the indexes under 2.6. If you delete an 2.6 index and reestablish it by opening the table under VFP, it may or may not recognize the index. You should design a reindex routine under 2.6 which will actually delete the index if it is corrupt and rebuild it as part of the reindex or pack routine. Also check the VFP help for copying files from VFP tables to a 2.6 table. I think there is a parameter you can use to make sure the copied table is 2.6 readable.
>
>Also, you said you have all of the netware updates for Win95. Make sure you are using Client32, it works so much better than the Microsoft Netware Shell. However, this shouldn't affect your problem.
>
>One other item. If a file gets corrupted, make sure you run a "header fixing" program against the files before you reindex them. The best way of keeping indexes intact though (assuming you are doing a lot of packing to eliminate deleted records) is to delete the old index, create a new one and reindex the file.
>
>Good luck,
>
>Bill

Also, if one tag in particular is getting corrupted, he needs to make sure that NONE of the tags are active when the APPEND is issued as this can cause problems. As far as the reindexing, I agree with Bill. In fact, my 'standard' reindexing module in FPD/FPW 2.0/2.5/2.6 did the equivalent of a PACK (which in effect deletes and recreates the indexes).

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