Software Bisque Knowledge Base Article – 161

AFTER ADDING AN SDB, THESKY CRASHES UPON RESTART

ISSUE

If the user has recently added an SDB, and restarts TheSky, the error message “TheSky has performed an illegal operation and will be shut down…” appears.

RESOLUTION

If TheSky crashes after adding a database, this indicates that the file that was added is not a valid Sky Database File (SDB). That is, a text, picture, or other file format was incorrectly added to the Sky Database Manager.

To solve the problem:
1. Press and hold the Ctrl key on your keyboard while launching TheSky. This undocumented command disables the current SDBs for the current session only. TheSky should launch and run without the error message. Then:

IF YOU KNOW WHICH FILE IS INVALID:
2a. Use the Data, Sky Database Manager to remove the file from the database list.
3a. Restart TheSky normally (do not use the Ctrl key). If the error message still appears, one or more invalid files are still in the database list – return to step 1.

IF YOU DON’T KNOW WHICH FILE IS INVALID:
2b. Close TheSky (if running), and delete the file SDB.LST from TheSky folder. Remember, by default Windows 95 hides extensions from file names.
3b. Restart TheSky and use the Data, Sky Database Manager tool to restore -valid- .SDB database files. Hint: Add a small number of files, then restart TheSky to confirm that none were invalid. Repeat this process until you have all desired databases added. If you encounter an error, return to step 1, then proceed to 2a.

Note:
Uninstalling and reinstalling TheSky does not resolve this problem (unless you also delete TheSky’s folder). The SDB.LST file is created at run-time and is not uninstalled. Software Bisque is investigating this situation and plans to eliminate the problem in a future release.

APPLIES TO

Database

KEYWORDS

SBKB

This article was formerly published under the identifier Q338KB in Software Bisque’s prior knowledge base.

Last Reviewed: 11/24/2004