My pointy-hair is getting on my case because our Domino server keeps crashing. I know what the problem is, it's one, relatively small database that keeps corrupting. I'm not yet sure why it's corrupting, but I'm working on it.

Anyway, the thing is, once the server crashes, I make like a good girl and do a database reindex. Unfortunately, this usually takes about four hours and my boss is now threatening to fire me (!) if I keep taking the server down for so long in the middle of the work day.

I need this job (although I could honestly do without this guy as my boss). Anything you can suggest to help me rebuild this database faster?

Wow! I certainly feel for Chloe. Clearly, the right answer is to find out what's causing that one database to corrupt regularly. I can't help much, because she didn't provide us with much detail on that problem.

But I did notice a couple of key words that might help Chloe's time-for-rebuild problem. She mentioned "one, relatively small database" and also said the reindex takes "about four hours".

Now, relatively small is a relative term, but I'm going to assume that she's got a few relatively big databases and this relatively small one. I'm also going to guess that when she does a database reindex, she's not just reindexing the small one, but all the databases, which could take time.

Most Notes administrators know about the updall task, and many who use it call it this way:

This will reindex all the databases. But there is a way to tell updall to only reindex one database, as in the following:

Just replace the optional [database-name] with the name of your database.

Chloe, my guess is that if you tell updall to only reindex the one database you know is corrupted, you'll save a lot of time and probably keep your job.

Just one question: are you sure it's only one database? You should definitely get to fixing what's causing the problem right away.

Joe is a ZATZ associate editor. Prior to this job, he was customer support manager for the FileFlex database engine.