Deploy Tech Support

I have my Crate Pro database files installed on a dedicated computer. When I open the files from a client using a share that we set up I keep getting an error. 

OS level file sharing can lead to file corruption

FileMaker Pro and FileMaker Server use their own networking capabilities, and are entirely independent of any file sharing capabilities native to your operating system.

If you try to share access to a FileMaker database by using standard operating system file sharing services you are putting your database at risk forfile corruption. Keep in mind that when one FileMaker Pro client makes changes to a file shared via this method, other clients are unaware of the changes being made. In addition, losing connection in mid-edit while flushing your changes back to the host's hard disk can lead to file corruption.

The correct way to open a Multi user FileMaker file from another workstation is to open it via File > Open Remote...' or a launcher file that performs this process via a script.

Click here to learn how to properly share files in a peer to peer network using FileMaker Pro.

If hosting your files via FileMaker Server, the machine should not have OS-level file sharing turned on to ensure that files hosted by FileMaker Server cannot be accessed directly by users other than via FileMaker's own file sharing service.

This means you should not share the FileMaker directory on the server machine. Often the server directory is shared when guests are mapping the FileMaker Server directory as a network drive and launching the files from there. This is an improper method of accessing FileMaker files. For this reason, please make sure that file sharing is turned off for the FileMaker Server machine.

Multi-user databases should also be excluded from any third party sharing software, such as Dropbox.