FMP 7 Developer, WinXP

I have a couple of databases I work on regularly. They all worked shipshape.
Not anymore since I have installed a backup program (retrospect). There is
one data base that now tries to acces the dvd+rw I use for the backups. It
takes ages to get out this process. (Or untill I manualy open the dvd tray).
And the same again when quiting this database. All other databases do fine.
The dvd is formatted by the program and not normaly accessable by the
explorer. It just seems empty when opened. So why the heck does this program
wants to open this dvd???? Any ideas welcome.

--
Keep Well,
Ursus

My guess is that at some point you tried opening a file on the CD from
FileMaker. FileMaker remembered that. Take a look at the file
references in FM7 (File > Define > File References) to see if anything
is pointing to the CD.

As for retrospect -- make sure that program is not touching any of your
FileMaker files while they are live. Doing so will eventually corrupt
your files, regardless of the marketing hyperbole from Retrospect. Use
FM Server to create your local backups, and then use Retrospect to
*backup the backups* and *not* the live files.


ursus.kirk wrote:
--
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Howard Schlossberg (818) 883-2846
FM Pro Solutions Los Angeles, California

FileMaker 7 Certified Developer
Associate Member, FileMaker Solutions Alliance

In article <11jipjfrdii41f (AT) corp (DOT) supernews.com>,
howard (AT) antispahm (DOT) fmprosolutions.com says...
Seconded. That's how I do it too.

YEAKS! So I finaly have a backup program, but this needs not the original
files, but a copy? Even when I know for sure all the files are closed during
backup?

I don't have FileMaker Server, but Developer and am using it on a single
machine.

The file has no file references other then the ones it should have. I Think
I have to rebuild, or get rid of retrospect. Any other backup programs, hat
might be usefull? I used to use nero backup. But this is not quite as
flexible.

Ursus

"Howard Schlossberg" <howard (AT) antispahm (DOT) fmprosolutions.com> schreef in
bericht news:11jipjfrdii41f (AT) corp (DOT) supernews.com...

YES! I found it. Seems I must have tried a backup anyway when one file was
still open. One of the related files had an extra file reference. Thanks!


"Howard Schlossberg" <howard (AT) antispahm (DOT) fmprosolutions.com> schreef in
bericht news:11jipjfrdii41f (AT) corp (DOT) supernews.com...

In article <433c2c83$0$17380$dbd49001 (AT) news (DOT) wanadoo.nl>,
secret (AT) nowhere (DOT) com says...
If you aren't running a server, and you are just hosting with
pro/developer7/advanced8 then clowing the program and backing up the
originals is safe.

With a server, stopping the server and backing up the originals is also
safe... but why bother, its simpler and less work to just have the
server schedule a backup, and then backup the backups. This 2 stage
backup is also more convenient as 9 times out of 10 you can do a restore
from the local hard drive backup without having to dig up the dvds or
tapes.

-regards,
Dave

I have a similar problem: A client of mine is running FMP7 on a separate
box, acting as host for local users and also as web server (IWP). Very
small scale. The "server" (host) is running at all times.

They need to have a backup, and I can see that I need to make a copy of
the DB, then have the regular backup SW do a copy to a different box -
the file server.

I know FMP7 lacks the backup scheduler found in FM Server, so what to
do?
Make a script that saves a compacted copy? What shoud trigger the
script, in that case?

In article <1h3o7zs.u6achk1acabk0N%no (AT) way (DOT) dk>, no (AT) way (DOT) dk says...
Close Filemaker Pro.
Make the backup.
Launch Filemaker Pro.

When its *that* small scale you can get away with just telling everyone
(by everyone of course I mean the 3 or 4 people who are connected) "its
time for backups, the system will be down for the next 4 minutes".

Or select a reasonable employee and negotiate with them to come in an
extra 5 minutes early, and do the backups before everyone else arrives.
(And let them leave 5 minutes early at day end, or give them an extra 5
minutes for lunch... or pay them an extra hour per week or whatever.)

Or make it a policy to reboot the server at the end of each day, put
someone in charge of that, and have it set to run a batch file to backup
the database before launching filemaker again.

The simpler you can make it the better.

-cheers,
Dave

42 <nospam (AT) nospam (DOT) com> wrote:

with saving a copy?

Maybe the backup sw can close and relaunch FMP.

Thanks for the reply, anyway.

In article <1h3p2ln.1uj3ysfd9uhoeN%no (AT) way (DOT) dk>, no (AT) way (DOT) dk says...
By simpler I meant less prone to catastrophic failure. Not necessarily
the least amount of effort on the person responsible for backups.

Its my view that ensuring actually getting the backups done is already
cumbersome... the extra inconvenience of requiring the staff to
"interact" with the backups by closing the program, running the backup,
launching the program tends to actually increase reliability. If a
problem occurs they are interacting with it, and there's a high chance
that if they can't solve it that they'll at least report it.

There's just too many horror stories about companies with staff
diligently taking home blank CDs or tapes each day for weeks on end
because they were just trained to insert a new media in the morning into
a machine that was always on with the monitor running a screensaver or
even turned off and it wasn't until somebody needed one that they found
out they hadn't actually run a backup in 3 months. That the alert emails
the backup software was sending were getting bounced by the spam filter
or were being directed to an account that no longer existed... that a
local or network resource had been renamed or moved, etc etc etc.

If the system is small enough, like yours, its often simpler to just
enact a simple manual process rather than build a more complex automated
one and then try to get a non-technical person to deal with it.

Most systems with 3 to 5 users already have (or should have) someone
responsible for putting in removable media, taking a backup offsite with
them, making sure the backups are actually happening so that they aren't
carrying a blank disk around, etc. Adding to their duties quitting and
relaunching a program really is hardly a grand burden.


Good question.

I looked into the docs for it, in theory it looks like nothing is wrong
with it.

In practice I vaguely recall it being exceedingly slow - but to be fair
its been years since I used that feature to save full blown copies of a
database, and I might be misremembering and/or things might have
improved. In any case for a fairly small database it should likely be
fast enough even if it is orders of magnitude slower than OS level
duplication.

Good luck.
-dave