File Open synchronization states deleted records

One of the tables that I am using makes heavy use of the Data Sheet with Summary records accomplishing much of the visual needs for clarity. When the single, only user closes the table and then later reopens it, the server nauturally does its synchronization thing but the message is disconcerting.

The message just received upon opening says:
Synchronized: 154
Updated 44 records, deleted 360.

I was very shocked and momentarily very unhappy as that file should never have deleted records. In fact, many of my tables are ongoing, growing in size with no desire for ever deleting of history.

What I soon recognized though was that after the client / server finished the synchronization, all of the Summary records that were there when the client last saved and quit, were gone. Thus the Deleted records were probably (hopefully) just the Summary records being removed.

Since there is only 1 client at this time, the user really doesn’t ever expect to see 44 records updated. (From who? Who else is changng things?) And too, ‘delteted records’? Who deleted the records? It is just that single user!

I’m not all that worried about the ‘updated records’ but I would really like for the user to not see ‘deleted records’ when they are only Summary records, which are meant to be temporary. If there are really deleted records happening, I want someone to come yelling really quick as something is wrong and we need to fix whatever is broke. Can we possibly have:

Summary Records removed: 360
Records Deleted: 0

I never really considered this because I always remove summary records almost immediately. (In fact these days I rarely use summary records at all, usually I use the Summary Workshop or Crosstab Workshop.)

Panorama has always removed summary records when synchronizing, I think even back to the Butler days. But of course before it didn’t report the count. I think it is quite reasonable that summary records should not be included in the count of deleted records.

And what say you about the…

Synchronized: 154

As the user has saved the file and quit, when they immediately reopen the file, it seems odd that there would be any records ‘synchronized’. Where would that number be coming from? And the ‘updated’? What are those?

I do always appreciate information. More is most always better. But I do really like understanding the context of the information that I receive.

Oh right, sorry, I meant to answer that also.

For each client, Panorama tracks when the last synchronization was performed (it’s actually not a time, but a sequence number). It downloads all of the records that have been modified since that time (again, not really a time, but same idea). This will include records modified by the current client. Panorama doesn’t keep track of who modified what record, so it has no idea that this data is already up-to-date on the current client, so it re-downloads it back to the client. So if no one else has modified the database, Synchronized: 154 means this user modified 154 records since the last sync.

Panorama 6 Server also worked this way, but you didn’t realize because it didn’t display this in any way. This display has been useful for me in debugging, but maybe I just shouldn’t display any numbers at all, since they may just cause confusion.

My earlier explanation about this was partially incorrect.

In this case, this means that there have been a total of 154 changes made to this database since it was first uploaded to the server (or since the last time there was a new database generation).

This information was kind of useful to me during debugging, but as you point out, it is of no use to and end user and is possibly confusing, I have just now removed it from the notification. I have also corrected the problem of it incorrectly reporting how many records were deleted during the sync when summary records are present.

The other part of my explanation was correct. If you open a database, make one change, and then synchronize, it will report 1 record updated – because it synchronizes the change you made back to your computer. The server keeps track of when each record was updated, but not who updated it, so it is not possible for it to exclude records that were modified on the current computer when synchronizing (as I mentioned before, Panorama 6 worked the same way, but you probably didn’t realize it).