No Charles, my Recorder 6 is the only Recorder installation I have on a new PC. I've never attempted the OS Maps installation before in any case.
Am I to take it that the OS Maps are not implemented in Recorder 6 then?

Thanks, Jo.
I've found the new utility for OS Maps on the NBN website:
OS map tile update for Recorder 6

Did you ever find a solution to this?

I have been trying it on a number of different systems all returning similar errors.

Ive had success on one... but I cant work out why.

Ive looked for obvious registry/config problems to little avail.

Thoughts?

MAtt

Tried it again today on a perfect installation of Recorder 6.10
It still crashes
I still get the message "Recorder not properly installed or set-up: Can't find database."
Can we PLEASE have a solution to this - the problem is now over 2 years old
I want them on my laptop for the Dipterists Forum trip to Aviemore at the end of next month. Stuart Ball will be there - perhaps he can get it going
A new installation CD for Recorder 6 seems to be the answer - I'd be prepared to pay yet again

I should add that between my March 2007 posting and my last one in this thread, there was a lot of email communication between Sarah Shaw, Jo Purdy, Mandy Henshall and myself - all trying to solve it.
Clearly, if several other users are having the same problem, it wasn't just my "dodgy" installation of Recorder 6.
The original Map Tile software was written by Blue Bag specifically for an older version of Recorder. Frankly I wouldn't expect an installation routine designed to detect an MSAccess 97 database to be able to detect a SQL Server/MSDE database.
It surely needs recommissioning from Blue Bag for a full rewrite.

Margaret,

There is no need to buy another set of the OS map tile CDs, assuming you have the set of 5 CDs from the NBN, but what you do need is the software to load them into Recorder 6. When I last checked with the NBN I was told that the set of CDs itself has not been changed since they were first issued in about 2002, i.e. they still contain the software that loads the tiles into Recorder 2000/2. If you want to load them into R6 you need to install the version of the software that does that instead. I presume Mandy Henshall at the NBN will be able to e-mail it to you, m.henshall@nbn.org.uk. If not, let me know and I will track down my copy. I believe Mandy now supplies this when people order the map tiles.

This usually works but not in all installations. Investigations last year seemed to indicate that if there was a problem with nbndata.mdb, the Access database that is usually created when Recorder 6 is installed, the map tile installer doesn’t work. Also, if you don’t have the correct permissions on the Map Files folder. If, for example, nbndata.mdb doesn’t get installed or there is a problem with the permissions on it then map tile installer won’t install the map tiles, presumably because it is unable to make the required entries in the map tables in the R6 database via nbndata.mdb. The error message is usually "Recorder not properly set up or installed or set-up. Can't find database". The map tile installer also has to be able to copy the map tiles ordered from the CD to the Map Files folder, which it won’t be able to do if the permissions aren’t correct.

It is a shame the map tiles software uses nbndata.mdb as it is not unusual for this not to be created during the installation of Recorder 6, and as page 36 of Network Installation Guide v5.1.doc says:

“Note that when security of the Recorder 6 database is paramount then this file should be deleted, as it offers un-secure access to the data. Even if password protected the level of security is significantly reduced as tools to extract passwords from Access databases are freely available on the internet.”

I asked the NBN to find out from the developers what needs to be done to resolve these problems but I haven’t had an answer yet. Creating nbndata.mdb manually was attempted in one case but didn’t resolve the problem even after removing the dbo_ prefix from key tables. JNCC have since issued software to create nbndata.mdb but I don’t know if this resolves the problem as I haven’t had occasion to try it for this one.

The work around is to install the map tiles you require into a copy of R6 that doesn’t suffer from these problems – I think standalone installations are usually all right – this creates the required .gsf files in the Map Files folder. You can then load them one at a time into another copy of R6 using Maps – Add Background Maps or by using the Bulk Load add-in. If you do it this way you should ensure you are not contravening the licence agreement.

Several years ago the NBN did a survey asking whether users would like to be able to use 1:25,000 map tiles in Recorder but nothing seemed to come of it. You could, of course, buy them from OS but when I last enquired, there was a minimum order of £100 and the prices varied according to the number purchased and the number of terminals they were to be used on. This makes them much more expensive than the set of 1:50,000 tiles available from the NBN, currently £16. The problem in Recorder would be the number of map tiles it can comfortably handle. Recorder doesn’t handle more than about 50 map tiles well – perhaps a user could confirm this figure. Each 1:50,000 map tile covers an area 20x20 km but 1:25,000 tiles only cover 10x10 kms so you would need 4 times as many of them to cover the same area. This probably means they wouldn’t really be usable in Recorder for anyone other than those working with a very restricted area.

Lynn, could you please ensure that JNCC’s work in this area addresses the problem of Recorder’s mapping becoming more or less unusable when users load more than about 50 tiles, unless, of course, you are looking at alternative forms of delivery. I am not sure what the number is or exactly what it depends on. I once loaded 80 tiles into Recorder 2002 and it was slow but usable. However, one user said he had problems with Recorder 6 with considerably fewer than this loaded. The map tiles are no use to the national schemes and societies unless Recorder 6 will comfortably handle significantly more than 50 tiles, preferably all 812. If a usable limit continues to apply, they will need an easy way of switching them on and off. I once suggested that users should be able to load large numbers but switch then on and off by 100 km square to prevent performance problems in Recorder.

Best wishes,

Sally

Just to keep the pot boiling, I have just upgraded to R6.14 and downloaded the R6 installer for the map tiles, but I get the dreaded "Recorder not properly installed or set up: can't find database" message. This is very frustrating, as I would really like to use my map tiles!

Does your Recorder 6 Access database work? As far as I can work out the R6 installer for the map tiles needs this to install map tiles. The Access database is nbndata.mdb and in a standard standalone installation it will be in C:\Program Files\Recorder 6\Database. To check whether it works open it and open one of the tables, e.g. the Setting table. If you can see the contents, the database is working. It is not uncommon for opening a table to result in a message saying that the ODBC connection to the SQL Server database has failed, in which case it obviously isn’t working. If it isn’t working can you try recreating it using the tool provided by JNCC at http://www.jncc.gov.uk/page-5005 then try installing the map tiles again.

It is a shame the map tiles software uses nbndata.mdb as it is not unusual for this not to be created during the installation of Recorder 6 and as page 36 of Network Installation Guide v5.1.doc says:

Note that when security of the Recorder 6 database is paramount then this file should be deleted, as it offers un-secure access to the data.  Even if password protected the level of security is significantly reduced as tools to extract passwords from Access databases are freely available on the internet.