I have a database server that is publishing updates.  There are four
people with copies of the database that synchronize on a periodic
basis, saving updates to a local store and copying the updates file to
a remote store.  Hourly, the server loads all updates from the four
users and saves out the current updates to stores to be downloaded by
the users the next time they synchronize.

One of the users had a request to make a change to a field of several
thousand records.  I said sure, I can put that in a quick query on the
server and manually run the synchronize and you'll have your changes in
a few minutes.  I ran the query on the server and then manually ran the
hourly save/load updates job.

But no one saw the changes.  I had seen this before, but it wasn't a
very specific case and there were other factors involved, so I hadn't
really paid attention to it.  But this time, I knew exactly what I had
done.

After scratching my head for a moment, I decided to try the exact same
query on a user database and synchronize to the server and then back
down to everyone else.  That worked.

Did I miss something in the manual about replication?  Why can't I
perform a query on the server and have those replicated to the users?
Is the server restricted to replicated updates only somehow?

--
David Cornelius
CorneliusConcepts.com

David,

<< One of the users had a request to make a change to a field of several
thousand records.  I said sure, I can put that in a quick query on the
server and manually run the synchronize and you'll have your changes in a
few minutes.  I ran the query on the server and then manually ran the hourly
save/load updates job.

But no one saw the changes.  I had seen this before, but it wasn't a very
specific case and there were other factors involved, so I hadn't really paid
attention to it.  But this time, I knew exactly what I had done.

After scratching my head for a moment, I decided to try the exact same
query on a user database and synchronize to the server and then back down to
everyone else.  That worked.

Did I miss something in the manual about replication?  Why can't I perform
a query on the server and have those replicated to the users? Is the server
restricted to replicated updates only somehow? >>

Is the table on the server that you updated actually published ?  Also, you
did use an UPDATE statement, correct ?  IOW, you're not talking about
altering the table structure, correct ?

--
Tim Young
Elevate Software
www.elevatesoft.com

> Is the table on the server that you updated actually published ?
> Also, you did use an UPDATE statement, correct ?  IOW, you're not
> talking about altering the table structure, correct ?

Yes, I actually made the updates to three of the main tables in the
application, header files for POs, Order Acknowledgements, and
Invoices.  These and their associated details are the most important
and are definitely published on the server and on each users'
workstation.

There were no table structure changes.  These were simple UPDATE
statements modifying the value of a VARCHAR field.  I didn't even use a
WHERE clause (the change was global).  And I verified using a SELECT
statement afterwards on one of the tables.

--
David Cornelius
CorneliusConcepts.com

David,

<< Yes, I actually made the updates to three of the main tables in the
application, header files for POs, Order Acknowledgements, and Invoices.
These and their associated details are the most important and are definitely
published on the server and on each users' workstation.

There were no table structure changes.  These were simple UPDATE statements
modifying the value of a VARCHAR field.  I didn't even use a WHERE clause
(the change was global).  And I verified using a SELECT statement afterwards
on one of the tables. >>

Are you *sure* that these tables being updated are published ?  I cannot
reproduce this here at all.  I just did a test on a published table, saved
its updates, loaded the updates in a different table with the same
structure, but not published, and it worked fine.  So, I then did the same
with the target table being published.  Same result, updates loaded just
fine.

--
Tim Young
Elevate Software
www.elevatesoft.com

> Are you sure that these tables being updated are published ?  I
> cannot reproduce this here at all.  I just did a test on a published
> table, saved its updates, loaded the updates in a different table
> with the same structure, but not published, and it worked fine.  So,
> I then did the same with the target table being published.  Same
> result, updates loaded just fine.

Well, now I'm starting to doubt myself!  And I can't go back in time to
make sure I hadn't unpublished the table temporarily.  But it was the
middle of the afternoon, everyone had been working, I was on another
project and this was a very quick and simple request.  I didn't have to
start or stop any jobs or run a long script.

So I just tried it again on a different table, double-checking to make
sure it was published, waited for the hourly "updates" job to run
automatically instead of running it manually myself, then checked my
test user after synchronizing.  I had added a new row on the server,
and the new row appeared in my client database.  Then I updated the row
on the server using an UPDATE statement and the change replicated down
to the client.

Curses!  Or rather--YEAH!  I'm glad it works, but what happened
yesterday?  Sorry to bother you.

--
David Cornelius
CorneliusConcepts.com

David,

<< Curses!  Or rather--YEAH!  I'm glad it works, but what happened
yesterday?  Sorry to bother you. >>

No problem.  If you see anything weird again, just let me know.

--
Tim Young
Elevate Software
www.elevatesoft.com