Database Engine Error: Field name “user 5â€

[Shayne]

Hi Jon,

Congratulations on BE9.

I repaired and rebuilt my database before converting, then opened it in 9. It seemed fine. When I shut down BE and reopened it, BE9 wanted again to convert the same database, almost in an endless cycle. Then I get the following errors: Database Engine Error: Field name “user 5â€

[Jon]

Did you have an alpha version? If so, make sure you rid your hard drive of its traces (particularly Bookends 9 Preferences, as well as any ancillary files). Then run the release version of Bookends 9 and do the conversion on your Bookends 8 database again.

Jon
Sonny Software

[fulvio]

I'm having a similar problem: I've converted all my databases, which now have "conv" added at the end. I then quit and reopened BE9, and was able to open all of my libraries except one. When I tried to open this converted database, it asked me to convert it again, and instead of doing that, I got the same errors:

Database Engine Error: Fieldname "user5" is not unique.

Second and subsequent tries:

Database Engine Error: Field "allFields" does not exist.

I then tried opening the original BE8 database, and got the second error after trying to convert. Now when I try to open the converted database it says:

This Database cannot be opened by this version of Bookends.

How can I access this database?

I did not use the alpha version of BE9, and I'm running OSX 10.3.9

Also, I now have multiple copies of the same database. I'd like to get rid of the old copies of the working databases, but I want to make sure I don't wind up with a similar problem and lose everything.

Thanks in advance,

Rob

[Jon]

First, do not delete your Bookends 8 databases until you have used Bookends 9 for a while. They are insurance.

Second, rebuild your database in Bookends 8 first, then convert it to Bookends 9. It's possible it had some cryptic problem that the conversion exacerbated.

Jon
Sonny Software

[fulvio]

hmm.. i have the old database, but i've already deleted the older version of the app. is there somewhere i can go to download it?

[Jon]

You can download Bookends 8 here

http://homepage.mac.com/jda1/Bookends813.dmg.sit

Jon
Sonny Software

[fulvio]

Hi Jon, thanks very much for the link. I rebuilt the database, and the problem didn't go away. Since my other databases did work and only this one didn't, I decided to do a superficial comparison.

I think the problem is that the database file name was too long. I changed it, converted, and it seems to be working ok. I think BE9 may have trouble with database names that are too long, whereas BE8 was ok.

Thanks again.

[Jon]

Hm, it shouldn't. But I'll look into it and see if that is in fact a problem.

Thanks for the followup.

Jon
Sonny Software

[Shayne]

Did you have an alpha version? If so, make sure you rid your hard drive of its traces (particularly Bookends 9 Preferences, as well as any ancillary files). Then run the release version of Bookends 9 and do the conversion on your Bookends 8 database again.

Thanks Jon. Everything seems to be working now, especially as I deleted the preferences (yes, I did have an alpha version). I also found that exporting the references in 8 and importing them in 9 seemed to save most things.

Kindest regards,
Shayne

[Jon]

I think the problem is that the database file name was too long. I changed it, converted, and it seems to be working ok. I think BE9 may have trouble with database names that are too long, whereas BE8 was ok.

I can't reproduce that. Bookends handles very long names here. Perhaps you can zip and send me the db that caused you the problem (the Bookends 8 version).

Jon
Sonny Software

[thecritic]

Did you have an alpha version?

Never had an alpha version. I'm seeing: Database Engine Error: Segment "71" is wrong. The last segment is "71." If I then try to convert the Bookends 8 database again, I get the dreaded "Database Engine Error: fieldname 'user5' is not unique"

Not sure what to do at this point.