Maintaining and recovering FileMaker Pro databases
Power failures, hardware problems, and other factors can damage a FileMaker Pro database file. Although the Recover feature might be able to salvage a damaged file, it is strongly recommended that you perform regular maintenance on your FileMaker Pro databases.
Regular FileMaker Pro maintenance takes two forms:
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About file maintenance
In order to understand how file corruption occurs, it is useful to know how FileMaker Pro manages data.
FileMaker Pro is a disk-based application, so it does not need to load the entire database into RAM as the file is opened. Instead, the application transfers data as needed from the hard drive to RAM and back. As the file is used, updated data is written from data buffers in RAM to the hard drive. The most common cause of file damage is an unexpected application termination or quit. In most cases, an unexpected quit occurs when the file is between hard-drive updates. In this situation, the next time the database is opened, FileMaker Pro runs a consistency check on the file and the file usually opens without problems. However, if the unexpected quit occurs during a hard drive update, the file is likely to require recovery.
Notes
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Topics in this section
Backing up
Saving a compacted copy
About recovering FileMaker Pro files
Troubleshooting file recovery