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Sometimes computer data can become corrupt if your system suffers a power failure or severe crash you may be presented with the following message when trying to open Garage Assistant

''The file datafile_main is damaged and cannot be opened, please use the recover command''

This guide is for the Network Edition only.
An alternative guide is available for the Single User / Standalone version

In order to use the recover command, follow these steps: 

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• Close GA3 down completely on all clients and the host.
  
  
• Open your File Explorer and navigate to
  Windows:  Local Disk (C:)  
  macOS:     Applications 
  
  
• You should see a folder named Garage Assistant V3 Server
  
  
• Click on the folder, then press CTRL C ,  followed by CTRL V, to make a copy in case of issues.
  
  

• Go into the Garage Assistant V3 Server folder and double click on FileMaker Pro
  
  
• You will then see a window resembling the following:

• Click on File and choose Recover
  
  
• This will now show a File Explorer / Finder window titled "Select Damaged File"

• Highlight the file named 'datafile_main' from the Garage Assistant V3 Server folder
  Ensure the last modified date of the file shows as todays date.
  
  
• With the file highlighted, click on Select.
  
  
• You will then be asked to provide a name for the recovered file, it is extremely important that you make a note of this filename (circled below), it will be required to complete the process.
  This is usually called datafile_main Recovered.

• Click on Save and the recovery process will now begin. 
  
  

• Once Finished, you will see a Brief Description, simply click OK.

• Next, close down FileMaker Pro and go back to the Garage Assistant V3 Server folder as shown below, obviously, it will look slightly different on macOS but the information is essentially identical.

• You should now see datafile_main and datafile_main_Recovered*
  (this is the file you made a note of earlier, it may be named slightly different) 
  
  
• These files contain all of your data, so be careful when renaming them.
  
  
• To complete the process, you will now have to rename datafile_main (the original damaged file) to something else, perhaps using the date, i.e  "19052017 datafile_main".  This file will not be used so the name doesn't matter, it is just to free up the filename.
  
  
• Next, rename "datafile_main_Recovered" to just "datafile_main" leaving any extension intact, such as datafile_main.fp7 or datafile_main.fmp12.  This makes it so the newly recovered file is now the file GA3 will load.
  
  
• You should now be able to open GA3 as normal
  
  

 

Note:
Sometimes, after performing a recovery on a GA3 file, you may get a message warning you not to use the file going forward.  However, this can be a false message if the only noticeable change is Structure: scanned; x items modified.  (usually 1 or 2) as shown below.


If this is the case, ignore the warning message. 

 

 Tags: File Damaged, datafile_main, recovery command, recover, ga3 network.

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