I’ve just made a substantial investment of time developing a new database from scratch. I’ve been saving as I’ve been developing.
I needed to insert a new field which I did in the Data Sheet when I pressed ‘enter’ Panorama crashed (again) and it seems has corrupted the file I was working on. When I try to open the file now either by double-clicking or from within Panorama, Panorama crashes every time. I’m discouraged!
If the substantial time you put in was in compiling the data, I assume that you have it backed up somewhere. If not, I’m sure you’ll do that next time.
If the time was spent in developing forms and/or procedures, you can copy them to a new database and test it as each one comes in. if one of them is corrupted, that process will demonstrate which it is. You may well find that the new database runs fine.
The easiest way to copy forms and procedures is to open the View Organizer in each of the old and new databases and just drag them across.
Hi Michael, thanks for your helpful response. The time I spent was developing a brand-new database from the ground up. I was simply adding a new field inside the Data Sheet. I only had a couple of test records saved. While inserting the new field Panorama just crashed. Now, I cannot open the database I was developing. I was saving the database regularly as I proceeded. But now the file will simply cause Panorama to crash when I try to open (either by double-clicking the file or from within Panorama).
I find Panorama crashes a little too often for me. Although it’s easy to restart and open the databases I was working on, it still leaves me with an edge of uneasiness.
Thanks so much for your input.
Do you use Time Machine?
Also, there is a way to open just the data sheet on a file. Search for it here.
To open just the data sheet, choose Find & Open from the File menu. Locate the file in the list, then right click on it and choose Open Data Sheet Only from the pop-up menu. This is described under Special Operations Menu on this help page.
In most cases this will allow the file to open. Then you can open forms one at a time and see if one of them is causing a crash. If you figure out one that is, you can use the View Organizer to remove the problem form (or procedure) without having to open it.
If opening the database without windows doesn’t work, you can send the database to our support email address and I will look at the file under Xcode’s debugger. No guarantees, but I may be able to figure out what happened and/or figure out a way to get the file open.
FWIW, along with daily backups, when developing a new file, I always make a copy of the database in the finder before I open it. That way I can always revert back to the previous version. Yes, I know there is a revert feature built in, but it you can’t open the file, you can’t revert it.
True…and thank goodness for Time Machine. I have had to go into Time Machine on more than one occasion to step back a day or two and recover a file that was beyond the capabilities of the Panorama’s Revert option. I might lose a little of my work in between but at least I could get up and running once again.
Yes, I know - lots of advice after the fact. But one common reminder from Tech Support days was to have people make “versions” as they were developing. When I’d hear they were just “backing up”, I’d ask, "So, you are wiping out your last good copy with one you hope is good. Even in a productions environment, I’d write procedures so each daily backup went into its own Day (Mon, Tues, Wed, Thurs, Fri) folder. That way, a problem on Wednesday would not wipe out the good data from Tuesday.
I know there are all these “automatic” processes, like Time Machine. But I’m old, and old school. I like to take care of it myself. So as I reach each increment of development, I save a database1, database2, etc. I mean these days we have terabytes - right. By old school, I mean the days when, if you had the new 10MB hard drive, you were King of the Lab.
So we’ve come a long way. And I’m sure Time Machine works great; is very reliable. But I like to decide my own increments; my own previous state of goodness.
Time Machine can be old school! Think of it as the suspenders you wear with your belt.
I like that. In hiking/camping there are those who believe in multi-function - one device with multiple purposes (like a spork). I’m a believer in redundancy - belt and suspenders. If a person’s phone/camera/gps fails, they’ve lost their phone/camera/gps. But you can also have devices that have duplicate overlapping functions. Philosophy comes from experience that not everything works 100%, 100% of the time.
I bought a pair of suspenders I wear - with a belt - when giving a map/compass/gps course to emphasize my “belt and suspenders” lean. I understand the intrigue of “ultra light”, I just want those so inclined to understand the resulting exposure to … challenges.
In designing software, there’s a running idea - not loud, but there - “What would happen if the power was cut right now.” Power does go out; somebody can trip the switch on their surge protector under their desk - it happens.
I’ll look more into Time Machine.
The earlier answers here did not make it quite clear that even if you don’t use Time Machine, the system is always keeping a version every time you save. Thus it is possible to go back to the state of affairs before things got problematic.
Thanks all for your responses. Thanks Jim for pointing out the process for opening the Data Sheet only. That worked and I was back on track. (Similar to the Wizard in Pan6.)
However, I continue to experience many many crashes with PanX. Perhaps it is something in my OS. But it remains a frustration.
I love Panorama and continue to invest time into developing databases with it all the same.
I sympathize! (As you would realize reading my latest rants!)
I seem especially prone to crashes when working with forms using tiles (data, header, footer, etc.)
Also, I cannot seem to get Font Awesome Icons (or any ‘non-Pan’ graphic button) to work it’s assigned script when the icon sits on a data tile. (This used to work perfectly in Pan6.) If the icon (button) is on the header tile, then things work OK. (I used to place small arrows on the Data Tile and, when clicked, would open a detail window to the relevant record. very handy.). Plus, it seems to be hit and miss if I use a Button from Pan Objects. Are buttons no longer supposed to work on a Data Tile?
In Pan X, view as list forms are strictly for display. They are similar to matrices. What you see is just a picture of a button, not an actual working button.
Hello Bob,
I sympathize with you position. I was an early user of PaxX and took the Provue course two years ago. I made heavy use of View-As-List forms in Pan6, but I have converted everything to text lists. You can set them up in a simple and easy way but you can also do some more powerful and complicated things with them. For example, you mentioned clicking on a button in a row of data. You can use click, a double-click, an option-click, and control-click to initiate actions in a text list.
If you send a screen shot of you existing view-as-list form, I or others could probably suggest solutions or approaches that might work well for you.
Tom
CooperT - thank you!
Funny how I seem to find Help Info after I moan about a problem. Here is what I found in the PanX help:
“View-As-List Forms with Editable Objects
You should not use editable objects, like Text Editor Objects, Data Button Objects or Popup Menu Objects with View-As-List forms. (This was allowed in older versions of Panorama, but does not work in Panorama X.)” So, question answered.
Now, I will hope to carve out a bit of time today to explore the text lists option you have suggested. I’ll be back with those results.
There is no indication that designer is using view-as-list forms at all, let alone one with Editable Objects. The only thing he said was that he was adding a new field and the database got corrupted.
Panorama X is flaky. There is no getting around that fact.
Designer didn’t initiate this topic. Mediamattersman did. His initial post didn’t say anything about view-as-list or editable objects on them, but his most recent posts did.
Hi All, Sorry if this is getting a it confusing. Yes, as ‘dave’ observed, I started this thread because when I was adding a new field using the Data Sheet, PanX crashed and corrupted my database. Seems we’ve jumped around a bit.
To review: My database crashed, I initiated this thread.
Then, I took, Jim’s advise about opening the Data Sheet Only and succeeded. I opened the data sheet in the corrupted file and immediately saved a duplicate file, then, as recommended, when through each form to see if I could find if somehow a form caused the crash. (Even though it seemed not to be a forms fault in this case.)
I’m still developing that database but it continues to crash Pan too frequently for my liking. I continue to try to understand why, but no clear answers yet. Sadly, it’s not the only database that crashes Pan, but certainly the worst one.
As I find answers, I’ll be happy to post.
Thanks all for your engagement here.