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The FileMaker® Pro Recover.log

"What's the meaning of all these log entries? What to do?"

Does it tell me more than "The File is Damaged", maybe something useful?

To make it clear: you should not use a recovered file. Recovering is a very rigid process and you can't tell exactly what parts of a file may have been removed due to errors in the structure. But Recover of a file with an unknown state produces a Recover.log that may contain valuable information about the file.

Unfortunately a detailled explanation of all the entries is still missing. To shed some light on it I set up this page. Remember, this is work in progress and any comments are welcome.

Here is an example recover log. The "no error" parts have been stripped out to concentrate on the errors:

The Log Header:

The colums to the left are: date (ISO format), process time up to the millisecond, offset from Greenwich Mean Time (GMT), the filename, a recover error code, and some explanetory text, like the filename and the number of pages within the file (1 page = 4096 bytes).

2011-01-17 19:06:24.539 -0600    Orders.fp7    0    *** Started recovery of 'Orders.fp7'
2011-01-17 19:06:24.539 -0600    Orders.fp7    0	Scanning blocks and rebuilding file...
2011-01-17 19:06:33.740 -0600    Orders.fp7    0    Scan complete, found 60309 page(s) to process
2011-01-17 19:09:35.492 -0600    Orders.fp7    0    Rebuild processed 60309 page(s), completing end of file
2011-01-17 19:09:37.109 -0600    Orders.fp7    0    Completed copy or rebuild of file blocks

A harmless Error that may be ignored:

One of the most frequent errors reported are related to layouts. Whenever you read "Rebuilt group with X object(s)..." you may ignore it. The background for this message is that a group of layout elements as a whole does not exactly match the extension of the individual elements. To avoid this error message in the Recover.log, go to the layout in question, select one group after the other, ungroup and regroup again, which automatically corrects the dimensions of the group. Admitted, it may be some work to do so, especially on a complicated layout.
But nevertheless if you don't follow this procedure, the file works just as well in FM 11.

2011-01-17 19:13:58.230 -0600    Orders.fp7    0    Recovering: layout catalog
2011-01-17 19:13:58.571 -0600    Orders.fp7    0      Rebuilding layout catalog order list: quick reference 
2011-01-17 19:13:58.575 -0600    Orders.fp7    0      Rebuilding layout catalog order list: name 
2011-01-17 19:13:58.610 -0600    Orders.fp7    0      Rebuilding layout catalog order list: custom 
2011-01-17 19:13:58.614 -0600    Orders.fp7    0      Recovering: layout 'Report Menu' (1)
2011-01-17 19:13:58.615 -0600    Orders.fp7    8475      Rebuilt group with 5 object(s)
2011-01-17 19:13:58.616 -0600    Orders.fp7    8475      Rebuilt group with 4 object(s)
2011-01-17 19:13:58.647 -0600    Orders.fp7    8487      Reset table view
2011-01-17 19:13:58.664 -0600    Orders.fp7    8476        This item changed

2011-01-17 19:13:58.667 -0600    Orders.fp7    0      Recovering: layout 'Invoice Entry Help' (7)
2011-01-17 19:13:58.668 -0600    Orders.fp7    8475      Rebuilt group with 5 object(s)
2011-01-17 19:13:58.669 -0600    Orders.fp7    8475      Rebuilt group with 4 object(s)
2011-01-17 19:13:58.669 -0600    Orders.fp7    8487      Reset table view
2011-01-17 19:13:58.674 -0600    Orders.fp7    8476        This item changed

not analysed:

Would need an undamaged and the damaged version to analyse. But it looks like that not all graphic elements existed that were somehow referenced. I speculate this could cause crashes in the unrecovered file.

2011-01-17 19:13:59.520 -0600    Orders.fp7    0      Evaluating library for layouts
2011-01-17 19:13:59.520 -0600    Orders.fp7    0        Adjusted item count of library  (0) by -3
2011-01-17 19:13:59.521 -0600    Orders.fp7    0        Adjusted item count of library  (0) by -3
2011-01-17 19:13:59.521 -0600    Orders.fp7    0        Adjusted item count of library  (0) by -2
2011-01-17 19:13:59.522 -0600    Orders.fp7    0        Adjusted item count of library  (0) by -1
2011-01-17 19:13:59.523 -0600    Orders.fp7    0        Adjusted item count of library  (0) by -1

The Report Summary:

Nothing appears to be seriously damaged - possibly missing layout elements are not detectable.
The resulting file size is not smaller than the original: 248213504 bytes > 60309 * 4096 (247025664)
The difference in size is due to the allocation of the elements among the file's pages.

2011-01-17 19:14:00.447 -0600    Orders.fp7    8495    WARNING: problems were detected while recovering the
                                                         database.  The recovered file should NOT be used going
                                                         forward; copy only the most recent work from it into a
                                                         backup copy of the original file.
2011-01-17 19:14:00.459 -0600    Orders.fp7    0    File blocks: scanned and rebuilt 60309 block(s),
                                                         dropped 0 invalid data block(s)
2011-01-17 19:14:00.460 -0600    Orders.fp7    0    Schema: scanned fields and tables;
                                                    some problems were found...
2011-01-17 19:14:00.461 -0600    Orders.fp7    0      fields created to match record data: 0
2011-01-17 19:14:00.461 -0600    Orders.fp7    0      field values deleted due to invalid ID or repetition: 0
2011-01-17 19:14:00.462 -0600    Orders.fp7    0      records deleted due to invalid ID: 0
2011-01-17 19:14:00.462 -0600    Orders.fp7    0    Structure: scanned; 8 item(s) modified
2011-01-17 19:14:00.463 -0600    Orders.fp7    0    File size after recovery is 248213504 bytes
2011-01-17 19:14:00.463 -0600    Orders.fp7    0    *** Completed recovery to 'Orders Recovered.fp7'

Conclusion:

Given the Recover.log above it seems to be better to use the recovered version instead to avoid possible references to non-existant graphic elements.

Suggestions, opinions, experience reports and other hints are always welcome via our Contacts page.

 

This page will be extended/completed as time permits.