Hello everyone,

We have a client that is losing data in one table. The problem is associated with a payment reversal routine. We have one table that maintains a customer's account balance, and other tables that are affected by the reversal. The routine adjusts all these tables and commits the data inside a transaction (we are using local views). Later, the client finds that all tables have been committed properly, except for the one containing the account balance. There are other fields in the table beside the balance that aren't being updated, so we apparently are losing changes to the entire record. Of course, this behavior isn't consistent. The changes are saved successfully sometimes, and other times not.

We looked over the code for possible holes, but couldn't find anything. So, we created a routine to verify that the account balance is being adjusted. If not, we display a message, so the client knows immediately that the reversal has failed. After all data is committed, the routine closes the account view and underlying table, opens/requeries the view, and logs the account balance to another table. According to the log, at this point, everything is as it should be, so no message is displayed. Still, later our client finds that the account balance has not been adjusted. Very strange.

As far as we know, the problem is isolated to the single table. This may or may not be true, but so far it appears that way. So, we initially suspected data corruption of some sort (and this may still be the problem). We have reindex, packed, and run the data repair utility that ships with StoneField Database Toolkit on all tables. This hasn't prevented the problem. Should we try anything else regarding data corruption?

We also suspect that the problem may be related to the client's environment, but we don't see anything wrong with their setup:
- Windows NT Server SP6
- RAID Level 5, writing data and parity across three drives. Write cache is disabled and there is no other accelerator.
- Mixed workstations: Windows 98 and 2000. The problem happens on both.

As you can imagine, we are stumped. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. The app is programmed in VFP7 SP1.

Thanks.