Hi Calvin !

I have similar exeperiences. My new VFP application is less stable than 10-years FP DOS application.
I found a three main reasons of such sitiation.
1. New app is more complicated
My old aplication
a) opened a few files b) did an operation c) closed the files
In my new application user can open a few form simultaneously. Each forms opens a few forms. It may be that 10 times more files are still opened than in my FP DOS app. So there are more oportunities to potential index or header corruption.
2. With VFP an user can open table with damaged file header with no VFP error message (FD DOS rised error not a database table). Packing table corrects header in most situations. But between damage and packing user can work! As a result I sometimes see strange things in my VFP app tables.
3. FLUSH command does not work as it should (especially in peer to peer environment and on Novel Network)

My customers have much more powerfull but less stable application.
In my opinion VFP let a developer to build applications with great user interface more better than with FP DOS, but this application are often much more demanding to file system and this is the point where problems rises.
I wonder if it is possible to achieve database stability with file based database, when for example 10 users work in the same time - 2 user on Win95 machine, 3 on Win98, 4 on Win2000, 1 on WinXP. Each user opened about 20 tables (20dbf+ 10fpt+20cdx +dbc+dcx = 53 files) and files are placed on Novell server.
What we have is more than 200 file handles opened read write on a few different operating systems.

So I thouhgt a little bit and started learning SQL SERVER Transact-SQL syntax lately. I hope my conclusion is wrong, but my hope is not to big.

What I can make now.
1) I can write less demanding (from files system) application. But who will buy an app without bells and whistlers (sorry I mean whistles :) )
2) Send letters to MSFT with 3 big wishes.
a) Let VFP better checks if index file and table header is correct while file opening/closing (if it is possible).
b) Let VFP does better FLUSH (if it is possible)
c) Let VFP8 has better integration with SQL Server (it is possible) to make easier move to SQL SERVER what is a must when application has modern user interface and is mission critical.





>I have just recently converted a 10 year old FoxDOS program to VFP 6SP3. At this point approximately 400 users have converted over. Two very disconcerting things are happening. 1. Records are disappearing from files. 2. Primary Keys are being violated - that is, duplicate key fields are appearing in tables and the primary key index is being dropped.
>
>As to 1, I understand that the culprit is an incorrect record counter in the file header resulting in records being overwritten when new records are appended. This did happen in DOS from time to time but not with nearly the frequency it is happening now. As to 2, I did not think it was possible to insert a duplicate record into a key field. When this happens any screen using this table refuses to open which effectively shuts the program down.
>
>Two Questions - 1. Is the VFP file system stable? and 2. If it is, then why is this happening to me? By the way, I am running StoneField Database 5.1i and in my newest compile I am running FoxFix 5.0 in the background at startup to check file headers. I do not know if this is going to fix the problem.