FileMaker® Pro 9 Bible

Chapter 17. Maintaining and Restoring Data

When handled appropriately, FileMaker Pro solutions give years of faithful and trouble-free service — and, in fact, they've been known to survive a variety of forms of abuse. Nevertheless, problems can and do arise, and you need to know what to do — and what not to do — when responding to them.

As is frequently the case in many areas of computing, fiction and misinformation abound. In this chapter, we set out the facts for you so that you're able to address any potential problems with confidence and dependable strategies.

For more techniques to increase your solutions' fault tolerance and robustness, see the previous chapter. Here, we provide you with techniques to manage your solution's data.

Some Notes on File Recovery

The Recover command (File → Recover) is arguably one of the most universally misunderstood features in FileMaker Pro. Despite many theories about what it does and how and when you should use it, much of the original confusion persists.

The uncertainty surrounding the Recover command stems in part from the fact that its name is misleading. Recover simultaneously suggests regaining full health and regaining something lost or misappropriated. Neither sense aptly conveys what the recover command in FileMaker Pro actually does, a task that may be better characterized as a "partial salvage" in a brutal jaws-of-life kind of fashion

Debunking common myths and misconceptions

The first and most egregious misconception you'll encounter regarding ...