Trying to share Filemaker Database!! (upgraded from v5.5)

[sticks1977]

Currently we have a Filemaker database that resides on one of the network drives on the server. We connect to this server via appletalk on the Mac and the first person to open the file across the network is the "host".

 

Other people that open the file are "clients" and we all connect to the database via TCP/IP. Up until a few days ago, I realised that we had an old upgrade of Filemaker Pro 7 and finally got around to installing it - it is very handy as more complex calculations are able to be done...

 

Now the problem I am running into is sharing the database, I am able to open the file as the "host" but nobody else is able to connect to the file, when they try to it says that the file is in use (naturally!)

 

If anybody could assist me with sharing the database across the network it would be appreciated. In version 5.5 it was a rather simple interface, now there is open remote and other functions that are very new to me...

 

Technical Info: The server that the database is currently stored on has a router (also acts as the proxy - let's say the add is 10.5.1.4 with a port of 3145), and each individual mac is given an IP address and a subnet mask, this info may be useful??

 

Regards, Shaun (sticks1977)

[Ender]

Do not attempt to open files that are stored on a network volume. Files must be stored locally on the host computer's hard drive and shared with FileMaker's built-in hosting capability. Other clients then connect with the FileMaker network via Open Remote (or a launcher file).

 

See answer ID 5219 on FileMaker's Knowledge Base for some of the reasoning on this.

 

Though it was technically possible to host from a network volume in FM6 and lower, it was (and is) a bad practice, often a cause of poor performance and file corruption. I think FM7 and later attempted to prevent this practice by only allowing one user to connect to such files.

[AHunter3]

Currently we have a Filemaker database that resides on one of the network drives on the server. We connect to this server via appletalk on the Mac and the first person to open the file across the network is the "host".

 

Stop doing that immediately.

 

It is never a good idea to become the host of a file that is not on your own local hard disk.

 

 

Other people that open the file are "clients" and we all connect to the database via TCP/IP. Up until a few days ago, I realised that we had an old upgrade of Filemaker Pro 7 and finally got around to installing it - it is very handy as more complex calculations are able to be done...

 

Now the problem I am running into is sharing the database, I am able to open the file as the "host" but nobody else is able to connect to the file, when they try to it says that the file is in use (naturally!)

 

The proper way to be a guest of a file is to go File, Open Remote... select Local Hosts (if y'all are all on the same subnet) or add the host's IP address to Favorite Hosts (if y'all are NOT all on the same subnet); then select the file which should show on the right, and click the Open button.

 

How many users do you have at your company, by the way? And is it just the one file?

 

If anybody could assist me with sharing the database across the network it would be appreciated. In version 5.5 it was a rather simple interface, now there is open remote and other functions that are very new to me...

 

Open Remote has been around, (if not always as its own separate menu item), since FileMaker 2.2 and is what you should have been using under 5.5 as well.

 

 

Even if you just have a few users and one file to share, and therefore do not need FileMaker Server, you should put dedicate one machine to being the host, give it a permanent IP address, don't use it for anything else, turn off OS-level file sharing (so no one can see the file via Network Neighborhood or mount it on the Mac desktop, etc), turn off indexing, automated hard disk backup software, indexing, antivirus, and anything else that reads from or writes to the disk extensively, and then everyone goes File, Open Remote, and connects to that machine to be a Guest of that Host machine.