My database has been working fine for 3 weeks, but now all of a sudden, there's a problem.

My database is a database of email penpals. Since a few days ago, if someone added a profile (record) and said that they were male, their profile becomes added as a record. Now if I do a search for only males now in my database, at the end of the list where all of the newest added records are, the records are completely messed up. The order is supposed to be name, email, gender, age, and country, and other information in each record. But when I do the search only for males, it seems that everything has been pushed up 3 slots, ie age is where name is supposed to be, country is where email is supposed to be, etc. Also, the name, email, and gender of some people have merged with other peoples' records.

However, when I do a search which hasn't selected the radio button for male, it works fine.

The database has been working fine until now...My database is at http://www.i-chums.com/cgi-bin/database/db.cgi
Use the login: webigns
password:webigns
to log in. Do a search for only Males and go to the second page to see what I'm talking about...I know what I said is kind of confusing :-)

go to the second page and scroll to the bottom to see what I'm talking about :-)

The only thing I can think of is that you must've added some new fields in your default.cfg file, which is throwing off your database file, in turn throwing off your search results.

Anytime you add a new field, make sure that you add a | to your database in the spot where you added the field in your %db_def.

Regards,

------------------
Eliot Lee
Founder and Editor
Anthro TECH, L.L.C
http://www.anthrotech.com/
info@anthrotech.com
==========================
Coconino Community College
http://www.coco.cc.az.us/
Web Technology
Coordinator
elee@coco.cc.az.us

I haven't added any new fields...I haven't modified anything at all since starting. I can't delete those records through DBMan either because it says they don't exist...

Please save the following files:

default.cfg
html.pl
db.cgi
default.db

as text files, such as

default.txt
html.txt
db.txt
default.txt

and post the URL where we can find the files.

Regards,

------------------
Eliot Lee
Founder and Editor
Anthro TECH, L.L.C
http://www.anthrotech.com/
info@anthrotech.com
==========================
Coconino Community College
http://www.coco.cc.az.us/
Web Technology
Coordinator
elee@coco.cc.az.us

I had the same problem just a few weeks ago (see my post "My database is going nuts"). I hadn't added any new fields and, though maybe unrelated, it did happen after I added the secure password mod.

I don't know what caused it for sure (I have some suspicions), but I do know how to fix it. You have at least one entry in your database that is messed up, and all other records after it will be distorted. Check Bill Hetler and Melissa in your database. The distortion began at her record and there was no entry in the gender field.

Once you find the corrupted record, you must edit it directly in the database (.db) file. DO NOT use Modify to make changes, you will only make it worse. Make sure every field lines up, that there is a | separating every field, just like all other records. If necessary, you may want to delete the problematic record and re-enter it once the database has returned to normal.

Be sure to make backup copies BEFORE you make any changes so you can always undo any changes you make, just in case they didn't solve the problem.

This was a real pain in the neck to figure out (though I ended up with a much lower opinion of it). It can look right on screen, but you may not see the problem until you look directly in the database file. Then you'll say to yourself "How did that get there?" or "why is that missing?"

It's been less than two weeks since I solved my problem, A few new records have been added and the problem has not reoccured.

[This message has been edited by ER (edited September 16, 1999).]

Thanks ER. That fixed the problem :-) I really appreciate it.

Thanks for helping me, too, Eliot.

Thank you guys for everything! :-)

Glad that you worked it out.

Regards,

------------------
Eliot Lee
Founder and Editor
Anthro TECH, L.L.C
http://www.anthrotech.com/
info@anthrotech.com
==========================
Coconino Community College
http://www.coco.cc.az.us/
Web Technology
Coordinator
elee@coco.cc.az.us

Glad to have helped. I have gotten a lot of help from reading other messages and from people on this forum. I'm glad to be able to contribute something I learned.