Thanks for quck and informative reply!

We did shut down DB for a while and made copy of it. Then we'd run GFix on
the Copy, and it found and fixed something on one of on our own tables, not
from system tables. Can't remeber what it reported exactly, but anyways it
seemed to fix the problem. Couple of record (like 5) had errors...

Not sure was the fix good "enough". We tought the we make fresh copy of the
DB and try to pump data from old to new, to get rid of errors (we hope) :)

We try to do something :D

-TP-


_____

From: firebird-support@yahoogroups.com
[mailto:firebird-support@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Helen Borrie
Sent: 12. joulukuuta 2007 11:08
To: firebird-support@yahoogroups.com
Subject: RE: [firebird-support] Can't run GFix



At 05:59 PM 12/12/2007, you wrote:

>I am not the DB-admin (at all) so everything is new to me. But I'll try to
>fiure out that...
>
>OK... Found something... Hope this helps aven a little. Now we actually

know

>how to run GFix, it was about we did not know that it must be taken offline
>first (with GFix)...
>
>internal gds software consistency check (decompression overran buffer

(179))

This can happen where the database you are using was a file-copy from a
different operating system; or where the database is restored on a different
OS but the backup file was created as non-transportable. Do you know the
history of this database? If these actions are in its history then you do
have corruption and it could be extensive, with damaged system tables.

>DBSERVER (Client) Wed Nov 28 22:35:53 2007
>C:\Program Files\Firebird\Firebird_1_5\bin\fbserver.exe: terminated
>abnormally (4294967295)

Server crashed.

>and Backup
>
>gbak: 900000 records written
>gbak: ERROR: internal gds software consistency check (decompression overran
>buffer (179))
>gbak: ERROR: gds_$receive failed
>gbak: Exiting before completion due to errors
>gbak: ERROR: internal gds software consistency check (can't continue after
>bugcheck)

Backup encounters an internal error whose cause derives from something
beyond the knowledge or control of the Firebird engine. Probably damaged
system tables. This corruption is serious, such as misaligned data (due to
filesystem incompatibility) or physical damage that has happened because
somebody did something stupid to a database while page writes were in
progress. "Something stupid" could be:

- allowing logins to a database during a -Replace_database restore
- using a file-copy utility to copy a database whilst it is online
- copying a file-copied database file over an existing database
- and others...

A dying hard disk could also cause a database to get progressively
corrupted.

gfix can't fix it. It probably can't even analyse it.

In my opinion, you should not try to keep using this database. It will
require professional recovery. Wait until someone returns who has the
know-how to track what is going on at your site. I hope someone else can
give you some less gloomy opinions.

./heLen






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