Dear MarketCircle,

You folks need to publicly document how to restore an online database from an offline database. With Daylite 3.9 clients synching with Daylite Server, we have had nothing but trouble; in particular, modifications to the database (either online or offline) eventually end up resulting in the sync process failing (reporting "sync interruption").

I've created tickets with your support system, and haven't received a response. Until this is resolved, we can't work!!! I need to work RIGHT NOW; not in a week to 10 days when your support staff finally reply to me with, "Are you running the latest version of Daylite?" or "Have you tried restarting your server?".

If you would publicly document how to restore an online database from any given offline database, many of us waiting for you to resolve these issues could take matters into our own hands, and get back to work.

Please help.

Best regards,

Hi.
I'm afraid that you cannot create an online with your offline version of your database.
This was possible in version 3.8 but not 3.9.
(I am not sure if MC can offer this to you as a service, but do keep trying to get hold of them to find out).
Once you have got a confirmed ticket they are normally in touch with you quite soon.

It might be more important to consider why you are experiencing problems with your offline databases because even if you do manage to restore one of your offlines it is likely that the problem will recur.
Are you accessing your online database remotely?
Are you synching your offline databases regularly? This is important to avoid large amounts of data being updated.
What error messages are you receiving when you try to sync your offlines with the (Daylite) server?

Hope that gives you a bit of help in light of the fact that nobody answered your original question.
Regards

Bill

Bill,

Thanks for the reply. In the following thread, MarketCircle seems to indicate that it is possible to restore an online database from an offline database, in 3.9. (I presume it's 3.9, as the original poster's message was from October 2009.)

http://bit.ly/5DJSNM

Our organization runs two separate Daylite databases -- one for each of two companies -- and has a total of about six people accessing the server. Except for myself, everyone accesses the server remotely. For performance reasons, everyone works normally in offline mode, and syncs when Daylite reminds them to (about every three hours). We have now experienced the problem (the syncing eventually breaking) on both databases, with three or four clients.

It's pretty clear (to me) what causes the problem -- Modifying the offline database in some way that makes it impossible to sync again with the online database. In my personal case, this happened once when I did a large cleanup of my contacts. In that case, I ended up having to wipe my offline database, and start over -- this time working *online*. Doing the same cleanup, and syncing, I finally discovered a particular contact record that if deleted, would make it impossible to perform offline syncs (so I left it in place.) Then, a month or so later, it's happened again to me -- this time, however, I don't have time to troubleshoot, and figure out which database record I edited over Christmas, that caused my syncing to break when I got back to the office.

So, right now, we have one of our two databases which can't be used -- since MY offline database is up-to-date, but can't sync to the server. (BTW, I do my syncing inside the office LAN -- so it's not a local/remote thing.)

Given that this has happened to several people in my company, working on two different databases, and given my personal experience of this happening twice, I conclude this is a general technical problem. And since it appears to ultimately be related to particular DB changes, it's time consuming to track down.

For that reason, we URGENTLY need a way to restore an online database from an offline database, so that when this happens, we can simply identify who has the most up-to-date offline version, restore from that, and get back to work.

Thanks again,

-- Matt

Hi again.
Yes I can sympathise with your position on this.
You will need to get in touch with MC directly to ask about the offline -> online conversion.
(Hopefully they will also see this thread too).

It is true that there are issues with the synchronising engine and there is a solution being worked on by MC for an upcoming release that should address this issue.

Best regards

Bill

MarketCircle finally contacted me. As expected, the response contains boilerplate text basically asking if my computer is plugged in. They did ask for the logs, which I've provided, so some hope does remain.

Hi Matt.
Stick with it. They have eliminate the obvious first

Best regards

Bill

Thanks Bill, will do. I do appreciate they have to eliminate the obvious, but it's still a pain point when you have a problem that needs urgent resolution, and predictably know that the first few cycles with customer support are going to be wasted responding to boilerplate text.

Anyway, hope to have some positive news to report soon.

Good news. Today MarketCircle released version 3.9.6. Upon installing both the server and the client, I tried to go online, which initiated (as it does) a synchronization process. This process failed; however, with 3.9.6, the error message was different:

http://www.makalumedia.com/ski...-20100119-191810.png

I immediately tried a *second* sync, and it worked; I was able to go online.

According to that skitched error message, I expected at this point NOT to be able to go offline again, without creating a new offline database. However, going offline (from online) worked fine.

So, at this point, everything seems to be working, but I'm not sure whether or not whatever DB inconsistencies previously existed have been corrected or not.

But anyway, good news nonetheless.

I also have received the same error message, but upon multiple sync attempts, I am still getting the same message. I have also tried to uninstall Daylite from the client laptop and reinstall it with no positive results.

Any help would be appreciated.

Glen

quote:

matt@makalumedia.com

Just wondering if you ever resolved your issue with Daylight Database conversion from offline to online? I'm having the issues now, mac mini drive crashed and I have a new drive with no database on it. My laptop has a current version of an offline database that I'd like to use as the master. Please help if you can.

Hi focus310,

Please initiate a Support Ticket for your issue. For your reference, here is the link: http://www.marketcircle.com/su....php?step=2&deptid=1

Please reference the Forum Post.

Regards,
Irene C
Marketcircle Support Team