Detecting corrupt or invalid indexes ahead of time

[Nancy Palmquist]

Mike Schwartz wrote:
> Mike Schwartz wrote:
>>      Does anybody have a utility that detects a corrupt or invalid index 
>> before a user encounters it?  If filePro can tell me that I have an 
> 
> Make them a menu item that knows how indexes are built.
>>  
>>  
> Invalid usually means the file is locked.  Unlock the file and look again.
> The fact that the index is returning incorrect data is troubling in all
> cases.
> 
> Index issues can be caused by:
> 
> Nancy
> 
> ----- ----- -----
> 
>      Thanks for your explanation that "Invalid" usually means the file is
> "locked".  That is along the lines of what I am looking for, but I'm hoping
> that Ken or perhaps Bob Stockler has some additional insight into what makes
> an index appear to be invalid to dxmaint.
> 
>      I presume you mean that filePro file is locked at the filePro level,
> because you mention unlocking the file, but do you mean the index file
> itself is locked at the operating system level?

I mean it is a filepro lock.  Normal think you remove by UNLOCKING the filepro 
file.  It appears because the file is currently in use directly by *report or 
*clerk or *xmaint.  If no users are in the file, it is there because someone 
left without telling filepro.  They hit break, got a filepro error, they lost 
network connection somehow or otherwise exited incorrectly.  (Hitting the X in 
the corner of the window counts if they have not left the file in filePro.)

Track down this issue and it will probably fix the data issue.
> 
>      And thanks to everybody who has responded with reasons an index can get
> corrupted.  We have been troubleshooting these (very occasional) problems on
> and off for the past few weeks, but the customer isn't interested in paying
> for us do a lot of troubleshooting on this system.
> 
>      To restate the question I have:
> 
>      Is there any utility that I can run or any programming method I could
> use to examine every index on the system and tell me whether any of them
> appear to be invalid to filePro?  In other words if dxmaint can plainly see
> that an index is invalid, can I use the same logic in a program I write
> myself to determine if any of the indexes on my system are invalid, and have
> the system print me a report of those indexes?

There is no way to tell an index is broken.  You might add a function that 
unlocks files and rebuilds indexes in the problem areas when the users are all 
gone, once a day or something like that.  Nip it in the bud.

Nancy

> 
>      One other solution to this problem that has been suggested is to
> rebuild all the indexes every night, but it takes about 10 hours to rebuild
> them all.  It would possible to rebuild them all over the weekend, but that
> leads me to a "band-aid fix" question:
> 
>      There are many reindexing utilities, including some I have written
> myself, but all of the scripts that I am familiar with use the "rebuild on
> existing keys" methodology.  Do any of you have a script that reads the
> header information on every index in a filePro system and creates a rebuild
> line for each index with the actual fields listed on the line with "-rf"
> options?
> 
>      There are over 2,000 indexes on this system, including qualifiers, and
> I'd hate to have to hand-write 2000 "from scratch" index rebuilding lines.
> 
> 
>      If I had such a script, I could build a batch file and run that.  It
> would be much better to blow away all the indexes each weekend and rebuild
> all of them from scratch, rather than have to sit in front of my computer
> screen and watch for 10 hours each weekend to see if any of the indexes
> "hang" with an invalid error.
> 
>      I know that the fields and length information is available for both the
> pre and post-4.5 style indexes.  I just want to know if anybody has written
> such a script before I try to do it myself.   
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Mike Schwartz
>     
> 
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> 


-- 
Nancy Palmquist 		MOS & filePro Training Available
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