Clarissa,

>I've developed an Point Of Sale application. The transactions of the day (from the morning until the supermarket close at night) are stored locally (on local harddisk). At end of day (at night) the operator will run a program that will transfer all the transactions of the day into a master POS data file on the file server machine. The problem is that the program often stopped before finishing the transfer process.

First of all, eliminate some things that are possibilities:

1) Does the operator stay with the process until it is either completed or crashes? Don't assume yes, even if the person says yes.

2) Is the operator perhaps starting the process, then on the way out the door, flipping switches to turn off the lights, which also turns off the computer? Don't assume no, even if the person says no.

3) Does the program give an error message when it fails? Does the computer "hang" or "lock-up"?

4) If someone responsible sits with the process while it runs (like you perhaps), does it *ever* fail?

5) Are any other processes running on the server data files at the same time? Anyone logging in with remote access and working in the files?

6) Is there a cleaning service in the building after hours, perhaps unplugging the computer to plug in the vaccuum cleaner?