Crashes and odd Menubars

I’m having trouble with one of my clients who’s just having random crashes of Filemaker when running the script at the bottom of this post.

In addition the “Tools” menu is sometimes there and sometimes not there, for this user only (to be fair the only two users who normally see that particular menu item are me and him).

Lastly, even when doing a “clean” install it seems to remember his login and hosted server, so I’m wondering if he has some crud in his preferences.

He’s on a fully patched Tahoe Mac, and only his two machines have these problems.

When I log in on my computer and verify $$MyPermissions = “Admin” with permission set [Full Access], I see the Tools menu and the script below works fine.

When my client logs in, I confirm his$$MyPermissions = “Admin” with permission set [Full Access]

He has two computers, one was running: 21.1.141 (09-28-2024)

The other is running: 22.0.4.406 (11-04-2025)

In both cases when he runs a certain very benign script (see below) his machine crashed with an error and he does NOT have a Tools menu.

We deleted Filemaker preferences from library and the app, RESTARTED, and reinstalled the latest version of Filemaker. It asked for a license, but somehow still logged him in and remembered his remote server.

After multiple reinstalls and a restart, on one machine, the tools menu shows up, but running the script crashes filemaker. On the other machine, the Tools menu does NOT show up, and it doesn’t crash when the script is run.

I used 2EmpowerFM to confirm that I’m not setting the menu oddly anywhere.

There are no extensions installed on either machine.

The Filemaker server is 21.1.5.500

We ran MalwareBytes just in case..

What else could be going on causing the tools menu to not show up?

# StudentStatus_Warning_On_Change in file Map Academy (Filemakers-Mac-Studio.local)

Show Custom Dialog [ "Warning" ; "You just changed the student's status. If you didn't mean to you should set it back…" ]

If [ 🧑‍🎓Student::Status ≠ "Current" ]

	Show Custom Dialog [ "Cleanup" ; "Do you want to clear the studio, SPED manager, anchor, gradcap color, and schedule?" ]

	If [ Get(LastMessageChoice) = 1 ]

		Set Field [ 🧑‍🎓Student::Grad_StudioAtGraduation ; 🧑‍🎓Student::Studio ]

		// Show Custom Dialog [ "Removing" ; "Removing" ]

		Set Field [ 🧑‍🎓Student::Studio ; "" ]

		Set Field [ 🧑‍🎓Student::Anchor_ID ; "" ]

		Set Field [ 🧑‍🎓Student::SPEDManager_ID ; "" ]

		Set Field [ 🧑‍🎓Student::Schedule ; "" ]

		Set Field [ 🧑‍🎓Student::Graduate_This_Year_Color ; "" ]

		Set Field [ 🧑‍🎓Student::EngageStatus_OutreachPause ; "" ]

	End If

End If

If [ 🧑‍🎓Student::Status = "Graduate" or 🧑‍🎓Student::Status = "Transfer"  or 🧑‍🎓Student::Status = "Withdrawn" ]

	Set Field [ 🧑‍🎓Student::GraduationDate ; Get(CurrentDate) ]

Else

	If [ 🧑‍🎓Student::GraduationDate ≠ "" ]

		Show Custom Dialog [ "Graduated?" ; "This student has a graduation date, should we remove it?" ]

		If [ Get(LastMessageChoice) = 1 ]

			Set Field [ 🧑‍🎓Student::GraduationDate ; "" ]

		End If

	End If

End If

The Tools menu is a preference setting. So the question is, what is happening to their preferences? I don't think I have ever had my application preferences corrupted by a crash. ( I always lose everything in the data viewer). Is it possible that they are running several copies of FileMaker, one with "Use advanced tools" checked, the other not?

If the user has checked the "Remember this password" setting as they login that is stored in the Apple Keychain ( or the newer Passwords ) so it makes sense that it continues to work. That would work regardless of which copy of FileMaker that they opened. It would just work.

Are any of those fields in the script are used in other calculations, or in relationships, or is there an onTimer script schedule running?

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To me, the login itself isn’t the odd thing because as you said it’s stored in the keychain… the odd thing is it auto connects to the correct host.

I did a search in the finder and there are no other installed copies of FileMaker on the machine.

The connection to the host occurs prior to authentication, so that is user driven.

Exactly. That’s why it’s odd that after deleting preferences and app and restarting and reinstalling it auto-launches the host! It should require user action after restarting. I wonder if there’s another corrupt pref file somewhere?

FileMaker does not "auto-launch." It simply opens and waits for you to choose an option. You can't use preferences to have FileMaker auto-launch a database.

Whatever they are opening points them to a file on a server. That is an app, an automation/shortcut, a filemaker database, or an alias to the remote database.

We might be talking about different things. I’m talking about this preference being remembered even when I tried to clear everything from the library.

Yes. We're talking about different things.

Sorry!