Important Note: The DBU is a database utility program that you can use to manipulate data directly. Great care should be taken when working in the DBU. You may cause irreparable damage, delete or change data if you do not know what you are doing. Make a backup before you open the DBU. Please follow the instructions very carefully. If you are unsure of any instruction please do not hesitate to contact Otomys directly at (012) 348 4071. Otomys will not be held accountable for any data loss or corruption.

How to find damaged records in the olditem file

The records in the olditem file can get damaged under the following circumstances:

  • Power failure during close items

  • Close items interrupted

  • Running out of free disk space

  • Virus

  • Bad sectors on the hard disk

  • Work station logging into Microvet while the close item procedure is under way on the server

During close items, records are copied from the item file to the bottom of the olditem file.

Examine the olditem file

Exit from of Microvet on all the computers

Make a backup

Do these steps on the file server

 

Click on START

Click on PROGRAMS

Click on ACCESSORIES (only for windows ME/XP/NT and 2000)

Click on MS-DOS PROMPT or COMMAND PROMT

(From now on you will not be able to use your mouse, use the Enter key and the arrows on your keyboard.)

Type the following:

CD\MFW5

DBU

 

F2

DATABASE

Open OLDITEM.DBF

OK

F5

DATABASE

Inspect the records at the top of the table. Look at the tinum and tiacnum columns. There may not be any zeros. Press the right arrow and get the tidate.  This is the date where the records start. Scroll more to the right and get tiamount. This is the price of the line.

 

Look for corrupt or blank records with any of the following properties:

  • Blank spaces in tinum or tiacnum fields

  • ASCI characters in tinum or tiacnum fields

  • Fields filled with ********

Inspect the records at the bottom of the file. There is a record counter at the top of the browse screen. The first figure is the record number and second figure indicates the number of records in the table.

F7

GO TO

Fill in the total number of records

OK

Inspect the records at the bottom of the file. (If you go past the last record it will create a new record and all the fields will be 0.) If there are corrupt records, scroll upwards and find the transition between normal and corrupt records. Get the record number, oinum and tidate of the last normal record.

ESC

 

This procedure only inspected the top and bottom of the file. If the error is somewhere in between, the following procedure will show it.

 

OLDITEM.DBF is still open at this stage and listed under files.

F3

INDEX

Type in:

File       oiac

Key       oiacnum

OK

F5

DATABASE

Use the same procedure to inspect the files at the top and at the bottom of the table.

If you find any corrupt data contact Otomys at (012) 348 4071.

 

ESC

ESC

EXIT TO DOS

Y

DEL  *.IDX

EXIT

 

Start Microvet

The program will automatically start to re-index

A message may appear: ‘File is not marked with a code page’

Click on Windows

The selection will go to Windows ANSI

Click on Select

Log in