"Field or Variable ... does not exist."

Panorama X
1

I’ve been getting mysterious “does not exist” messages. All I’ve got set up is a fairly elementary relationship between two databases in which one database supplies a field’s value to the other. It’s nowhere near the complexity of some other inquiries here about the “does not exist” messages.

Sample messages:
”Field or Variable [optionsDatabasePath] does not exist.”
”getfieldproperties function error, field [URL] does not exist in database [Messages1231KEYB].” Despite the “field [URL]” not existing, everything seems to work. It’s hard to check with the field left at literally “[URL].”

Otherwise, everything seems to work. Two questions:

  1. What’s this about?
  2. As annoying as this is, can I safely ignore it at least for now?
2

Since there are two databases involved, the most likely explanation is that it is looking in the wrong database for a field or fileglobal variable. Without seeing the procedure it was trying to execute at the time, it’s hard to be more specific than that.

3

I’ve found that sometimes these are erroneous and a Quit & Reopen will stop that error.

4

Dismissing them seems to make them go away for a little while, but maybe quitting and reopening will last longer. I’ll give it a try.

5

sometimes these are erroneous

I disagree. These are simple error message that means what they say.

The first thing to note is that these are two completely different errors. They don’t have anything to do with each other.

As Dave hinted, you’ve given us almost nothing to go on. What were you trying to do when these error messages appeared? Were you doing something that would run a procedure or formula you have written?

Field or Variable [optionsDatabasePath] does not exist.

There is internal Panorama code that uses a variable with the name optionsDatabasePath. So I’m kind of suspicious that this might somehow be involved. However, this code is only used by the Database Options dialog, and only when the Auxiliary Database panel is open. For example, this variable is used when adding another auxiliary database. Is that what you were doing? On the other hand, I’ve not heard of anyone else reporting a problem with this panel. I don’t see any way this variable could be referenced by code outside of this panel.

Of course it’s also possible that you have written code that references a variable called optionsDatabasePath. But I would think you would have mentioned it if you had.

getfieldproperties function error, field [URL] does not exist in database [Messages1231KEYB

Do you have a database named Messages1231KEYB? That certainly isn’t anything built into Panorama.

It’s hard to check with the field left at literally “[URL].”

The field being referenced is just URL, not [URL]. This must be a field of yours, I don’t believe Panorama has any URL fields in any of its internal databases.

Despite the “field [URL]” not existing, everything seems to work.

Well something is not working. When an error like this occurs, Panorama stops whatever procedure it was running, and the rest of that procedure doesn’t ever run. So if there was more to do, it isn’t getting done.

  1. What’s this about?

Impossible to say with the information provided.

  1. As annoying as this is, can I safely ignore it at least for now?

That doesn’t seem like a good idea to me.

Dismissing them seems to make them go away for a little while

Well, it probably just “goes away” until you try to perform that same operation again.