FMPug is hosting a number of links compiled by Stephen Blackwell to provide a definitive resource for FMI's advice on security, recovering files, and running FM Server. Worth checking out.

The tech info articles on damaged files and recovery can be found here:

Article 5594

Article 5371

Article 5421

Article 1580

Greg Durniak has also compiled an excellent list of tips and resources regarding corruption and recovery, including tips for removing corrupt data & layouts.

Hopefully a simple question from a newbie: when getting familiar with the free calendar with FMPA 12, using the recover function results in the following from the log file.

Error 8495 WARNING: problems were detected while recovering the database. The recovered file should NOT be used going forward; copy only the most recent work from it into a backup copy of the original file.

This message is generated using recover on a freshly downloaded copy of the file before anything is done.

I am getting reacquainted with FileMaker after several years and looking forward to a lot of learning. I found info about a potential bug with the recover function that reports problems with complex layout objects where there isn't real file corruption. Anyone have experience with this? Is this a false error reported by FMP Recover?

The recover command can be hard to follow, but fortunately it writes a nice log. If I read the log from a recovery of a fresh download of the Free Calendar I search for anything containing the words "changed" or "modified". These are the things the recovery felt it had to address.

The only such item is a custom function we left in the calendar--but don't use. This function was used to test the native ExecuteSQL functionality against that provided by plugins. We don't call it, and you can delete it if you'd like. You don't, for example, move this function into your file when you paste the calendar in.

That said, I'd not use your recovered version, but use a fresh download of the free calendar: maybe just developer superstition, but maybe truth in there as well.