Quote: Sesame on the user's computer was idle when the server locked up. Sesame was open, but with nothing being currently accessed.
If there was only one connected client and that client was idle, I would suspect some external program "reached out" and touched the files. Sesame only opens the files immediately after a change in the data, and then closes the file as soon as the change has been written. If no user was making changes, the files would be closed and completely inert.
Sesame only very rarely rewrites an entire existing file - after structural changes, like a reconcile, a merge, or a trim. Usually it writes the changed data to a specific portion of the file(s) and does not change or rewrite any other portion of the file, except to update the total number of records on a delete or add.
Even if you pull the plug on an active server, you would have to time it so that Sesame is writing at that precise moment, which is fairly unlikely given the speed of modern harddrives.
Do you have any ideas as to what happened to cause your computer to lock up in the first place?
Before you pulled the plug, did you get a chance to look at the Sesame server's status window?
Were any of the memory numbers very very low?
Have you had any trouble with the network hardware on either of these two machines?
Any problem with the server's memory or harddrive?
Do you have sufficient swap space setup?
Are there any log file entries on the server (either OS or Sesame) that might be illuminating?
Is there any access to this server from the outside world?
Is it possible that these files were truncated before the server was reset?
Were there any notable oddities or misbehaviors the last time these applications were in use?
When you "pulled the plug" on the computer was there any activity on the screen? Was the Sesame server status window still updating? Could you move the mouse?
Was the network card still operational? Could you ping the computer from another computer?
Was the accounting software being actively used at the time?
How was it noted that the server computer was down? Was someone sitting at the computer? Did the Sesame client attempt to access the server?
Has this computer locked up before?
On Monday, Ray will probably ask to see the .db and the .dat file and the log files from the server and the client computer. Please save them.
Sorry to ask so many questions.