Ellen, thanks for help; I launched gbak (-b and -REP) from shell and I made a wait between the 2 operations and after the second one; the launch was made every 250 fields and the second wait was calculated from the number of the column; all goes ok if I make the critical passage in single step but if let run the program I obtain 'too many versions' with unpredictable conditions.-
In unpredictable conditions I obtain also 'db is shutdown'.-
I will wait for the arrival of your manual (surely it is OK) and then I try again.-
(you are ok: it is a WRONG IDEA to make a table with 2000 columns)
Regards,
Luciano Bellini -

----- Original Message -----
From: Helen Borrie
To: firebird-support@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Sunday, April 15, 2007 1:03 AM
Subject: Re: [firebird-support] garbage collection


At 07:03 AM 15/04/2007, Luciano Bellini wrote:
>Thank you for your kind reply; I made a SHELL launching gfix -sweep
>but my problem is always there: after 255 ALTER TABLE ADD... i
>obtain the error 'too many version';

Luciano, that is not a garbage collection problem. You have hit a
limit to the number of changes you can make to the metadata of one
table. When this "format version count" reaches 254 on *any table*,
you must back up the database with gbak -b, then restore it using gbak -c.

>I purcheased the manual and I am waiting for it...probably I made
>some mistake in gfix...I hope the manual will help me to resolve
>this and others problems.-

As the author, I must admit that the effect of this limitation does
not jump out of the book and reveal itself in any obvious way. I
guess I need to make a note to place a warning in a sidebar in a
future edition.

./heLen




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