>I've got something strange going on with the memo file attached to my status.dbf. It seems to be pulling memo entries from the wrong place. For instance, the memo for product A should say "yabba dabba doo" and the memo for product B should say "th-th-that's all folks". But when I go look at it, product A says "th-th-that's all folks" and I don't know where "yabba dabba doo" went.
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>What would cause this? I'm thinking it's an indexing problem, but I've reindexed several times with no luck. At one point when I tried to pack and reindex I got a message that said "memo field missing/invalid". But then I noticed in Explorer that the time of the dbf was about 2:00 pm but the time of the fpt was 9am. I don't know why the memo field is going back to that time of day..... heck, I don't have a clue as to what's happening. Help????

This is the biggest problem with using memo fields (IMO). Your DBF table holds a pointer to where the record's memo data resides in the FPT file. At times this pointer can get hosed, typically its just a record or two during an update/insert but some operations can destroy all pointers. When this happens your only recourse is to recover from the last valid backup or as Mark mentioned, low level hacking of the table to try to fix the pointers.

Another MAJOR problem is finding out when a pointer or pointers gets hosed. Usually, no indication is provide such as an error and you find out when a client notices something wrong. This is the worse situation of all, not knowing. For this reason alone: When it comes to maintaining mission critical data I "Just Say No" to memo fields.