On 2010 Jul 26, at 11:20, Steve Cassidy wrote:

> Pedro
> 
> The first things to consider would be:
> 
> (i) Is it possible that the records were in fact deleted? If the delete command is available in the file, it is always possible it has been used.


I consider this unlikely. If the sequence numbers are auto-entered, there would have been a gap (such as 98, 99, 100, ... 104, 105) where the 3 records were deleted, and Pedro says he looked and there was no such gap.

A better possible explanation is that a backup copy was created on, say, Tuesday; the 3 records were created on Wednesday (at which time the printouts were made); and the backup copy from Tuesday was erroneously reinstalled OVER the updated file on Thursday. This is something which is certainly possible when using Dropbox.


> (ii) Is it possible that you have mismanaged copies of the file (such as when using DropBox)? If there is no gap in the incremental record number (presumably an auto-enter serial number) then this is a good possibility. It is possible that the three lost records were input into a different copy of the file. When using DropBox with two computers, there are at least three copies of the file (on the original computer, on the DropBox server, and on your second computer). If both computers are not constantly connected to the internet, it seems fairly likely that this type of problem could happen. 
> 
> I'm not sure DropBox goes very well with Filemaker. There's no essential problem with the combination, but it does seem like keeping track of versions could be quite difficult.


I use Dropbox when doing work for one of my clients, but I'm paranoid about it. I insist that she have her copy of the database closed and notify me of the fact, then I copy (not move) the files out of Dropbox onto my computer, where I do my work before copying (not moving) the updated files back into Dropbox and letting her know that she can get at them again. So far (fingers crossed) this has not led to any problems.