THE GOLD STANDARD IN FAX SOFTWARE

Database corruption can cause a lot of unintended side-effects.  If one of your database tables suddenly becomes corrupted, it may cause other errors seemingly unrelated to the database.

It would not hurt to run Repair on the database tables and then restart snappy fax to ensure that is not the root cause.  It does no harm whatever to run the repair procedure on a table that is not corrupt.

It is a possibility that no one is sending any faxes to you.  However, if your fax volume is usually far above the volume you are experiencing then you should do this:

• Call your fax number with your cell phone and see if the modem is reacting to the call.  You can watch the Snappy Fax ‘Fax Progress->Incoming” view to see if anything is happening.  If the modem is reacting to the line ringing then it is likely no one is sending you a fax.
• If the modem is not reacting to the call (not answering the call) then you will need to do a hard reset of the modem.

“Hard reset procedure” (USB modems only):

1. Shut down Snappy Fax
2. Disconnect the modem’s USB cable from the computer’s USB port
3. Wait 20 seconds
4. Reconnect the modem to the same USB port on the computer
5. Restart snappy fax

Call your fax number again from your cell phone to verify the modem is working.

If you are using the fax server and snappy fax client, you may see this error from time to time.

The first thing you should do is restart the fax server software.  When the fax server starts up it checks the database server to see if it is responding.  If it isn’t then it will restart it.  This will normally fix the issue.

You may get this error if you do not have the fax server and snappy fax client configured correctly.  The fax server’s settings->network clients section should include the computer name of the client computer.  The name must match exactly or the authentication of the client will fail in the database server.  See the tutorial on configuring the fax server and client on our tutorials page.

If you are certain your configuration is correct and have restarted the fax server and the problem persists then do the following:

• Shut down the fax server software.
• Use Task Manager and end task sfdbsrvr.exe.  You will easily find it on the “Details” tab in Task Manager.
• Restart the fax server software.

If you are using the fax server and snappy fax client, you may see this error under the following circumstances.

• The fax server and/or the snappy fax client are not configured correctly for the fax server environment.
• The client computer’s network name is not included in the list of supported network clients in the fax server’s settings->network clients.

Refer to the tutorials page for instruction on configuring the fax server and snappy fax client.

This is a database error.  You should not get this error but read on to understand why you might get it.

The snappy fax database tables (files) have the following extensions:

• .sfdata – this is the main data of the table
• .sfidx – this is the index to the table (how lookups are performed)
• .sfblb – this file contains BLOB data where things like fax images are stored.

Error 11010 can result if any one of the aforementioned files for a specific table is missing.  *If* the table in question requires a BLOB file and it is missing, the database engine will report the table does not exist, when in reality there is a missing file, not a database.

This is a database error as well.  Typically the table name in question might look like: 998766.sfdata.

Numbered file names indicate temporary tables that are used in SQL queries.  This is normally caused by Anti-Virus software acquiring an OS level lock on the file preventing snappy fax from using it.

You should change your Anti-Virus software settings to exclude snappy fax data folders and subfolders from its real-time scanning.

These are all database errors that involve corruption in one or more database tables.

Corruption is rare but with any database system, it does occur.  That is the reason that all databases include some type of recovery and repair method.

In Snappy Fax, you can use the ‘Repair/Optimize Data’ utility on the ‘Utilities’ ribbon tab.  This will repair the table in question.  If you don’t know which specific table is involved, just select all tables and let it repair all of them.  There is no harm in repairing a table which is not damaged.  You should also optimize the table at the same time, there is a checkbox to select that.

You can also repair data tables using dbsys.exe, which is distributed with snappy fax and located in the snappy fax program files folder.  See the tutorial on our tutorials page illustrating how to use dbsys.

You have likely seen this problem with other software, as have we.

Snappy fax, like many other programs, is designed so that only one instance can be running at any time.  When snappy fax starts, it looks to see if another instance is already running.  If so, it sends a message to that instance to make itself visible and then the starting instance exits.

The already-running instance doesn’t respond to the message and show the main window.  This is because it is in an unstable state for some reason and cannot receive and process the windows message.

To fix this, use Task Manager and click on the ‘Details” tab.  Scroll down and find sf5.exe.  Right click on it and select “End Task” from the popup menu.  This will kill the already-running instance so you can now start a new instance of it.