FileMaker Pro: Communication with the host was interrupted and could not be re-established. All affected windows will be closed.

FileMaker Pro sudden disconnection issue

Sometime FileMaker Pro (FMP) users face sudden disconnection of FMP client. Before disconnection, the FMP client pops up an error message – “Communication with the host was interrupted and could not be re-established. All affected windows will be closed”. This might happen multiple times a day.

This issue can occur for FMP users working in an environment where network connectivity fluctuates or connection speed is very slow.

If this issue occurs only for a particular user and other users at same location have no such problem, below steps should be tried for that user:

• Request the user to restart the machine and retry
• If the issue still persist and there is no network connectivity problem going on, uninstall FMP client on user machine and then again do fresh install.

If this issue is common for most of the users in any particular network or location, the network performance play an important role in this situation. Networking team should be involved to address the connectivity slowness issue and request them to look into optimizing network performance for FMP shared database files. Minor network fluctuation can disconnect the FMP client which in turn close down all opened FMP databases immediately on user side. Due to this, there are high chances of losing unsaved data. Sometime FMP database file might get corrupt also.

By the time network problem is not resolved, below workaround can be tried. These steps can minimize the chances of sudden disconnection of FMP client and data loss.

• Users should try to work on minimum FMP database file/screen at one time. They should close FMP layouts or screens which are not needed at that moment. This will keep minimum network traffic between FMP client and FMP server.
• Implement “Flush Cache to Disk” script step and allow users to use it frequently to avoid loss of cached data on their end.
• On FMP client side, keep the option “Save cache contents” to every 10 min to save the data to FMP Server disk every 10 min
• On FMP Server side, the option “Set maximum idle time allowed for FMP clients” can be unchecked through FileMaker Server Admin Console to make sure that FMP clients are not disconnected by that time constraint configuration setting. This option you can find in FileMaker Server Overview à Configuration à Database Server à FileMaker Pro clients à Client settings.
• FMP script which takes long time to execute should be optimized to work faster.