corrupted databases - we need a tool!

[Robert Brenstein]

>Am 05.10.2004 um 00:31 schrieb michael geary:
>
>>Hi Folks,
>>
>>I am a big fan of Valentina, and as long as things go smoothly, I 
>>don't have any problems. BUT, I think we need some tools to 
>>repair/rebuild databases when they go bad.
>>
>>Using the Valentina App (OS X) I just deleted 1000000 records from 
>>a table, emptying it. I then closed the DB and tried to re-open it. 
>>Nothing. It is broken. Nothing I can do at all.
>>
>>The database is well over 300 MB, so it's not terribly practical 
>>for me to store an XML dump on a frequent basis. Fortunately, I'm 
>>not really losing any data with this corruption, because I can 
>>reconstruct the DB from other sources, but I am losing time.
>>
>>This is not the first time this has happened. Not at all. When 
>>things are good, they are very good. But when things are bad, they 
>>are very bad.
>>
>>Has anyone had similar experiences? I really wish I didn't have to 
>>go through this.
>
>
>
>Hi Michael,
>
>you have my vote for such a tool! Valentina databases are very 
>stable, but there a few cases with problems, and then its hard work 
>to repair it.
>
>Paul
>

My vote too. This is actually not a new topic if you search the list 
archives. At some point, Ruslan even added a flag to check whether 
the db was closed properly but as far as I know it is still not used. 
At least we got lately a diagnose option, still not finished, but 
usable. Yes, with the race to add new features and improve operation, 
the maintenance aspects of Valentina have always gotten a short end 
of the stick. There is no testing that can prevent all problems. Even 
with transactions, one may need these since the files can get 
corrupted.

And the stability of Valentina dbs is always very fragile. Like that 
corruption I recently reported. It came back again this week and that 
bo was was not even written to in the meantime. Luckily, my db is 
small enough that xml route gets me out of trouble. But I need to run 
diagnose regularly. More often than I care or should.

Robert