Freechain errors

[Don Coleman]

I have a client (fP v5.0.13, Windows 2000 & XP Pro. Clients, Windows 2000
Advanced Server) who is having frequent freechain issues.  Unfortunately
they occur most frequently at the worst time of the day, near their pickup
time for their FEDEX carrier, which is crunch time.  An automatic freechain
rebuild will occur in one of their *clerk processes and bring their system
to a halt.  Standard resolution is to have everyone exit fP, kill the
automatic freechain rebuild, rebuild the freechain manually, and they
continue normally until the next occurrence.  Unfortunately the customer
doesn't have the luxury of 5-10 minutes of down time during crunch time to
have everyone finish their record, exit, execute freechain, and start again.

Several observations; first the automatic freechain rebuilds seem to
increase in frequency the larger this file gets.  For example, this AM I
compressed this file (copied the key to a mirrored file key, then ran a
process to copy and write the "used" records back to my original file),
effectively shrinking the file from 157,000 records to 16,000 records.  This
file would normally grow to a maximum of 40,000 records on any given day.
All "completed" records are then archived to another file each evening after
the close of business.  So if I understand freechain correctly, this file
should never grow larger than the max size of 40,000 records.  However,
within a week or 10 days it will be > 100,000 records.  I assume this occurs
because the application is "taking" new records when there are free
(previously deleted) records available.  My understanding of the freechain
function is it acts as a pointer for the next record to be used.  If there
are previously deleted records available to be reused they would be reused
first before the app. takes a new record.  

As mentioned above, the frequency of the freechain errors increases with the
file size.  When the file was >150,000 records it was happening at least
daily, if not twice daily.  Any suggestions? 

Don Coleman
Donald G. Coleman, Consultant
402 Andrew Circle
Indiana, PA 15701
dcoleman at dgcreact.com
(724) 349-6302