A blank portal does not necessarily mean the notes have been deleted. The records may exist but fail the relationship, be filtered out, or be displayed through the wrong table occurrence. Changing several settings at once makes those causes harder to separate.
This walkthrough concerns a related-record portal, not a portal showing the current table’s found set. Use a duplicate of your FileMaker Pro file and fictional contacts. Do not enable record deletion or alter access privileges as a troubleshooting shortcut.
1. Start with two parents and three children.
In a Contacts table, give Mira the text ID C001 and Leon C002. In Notes, create the following records with a text ContactID foreign key. The IDs are intentionally simple for inspection; use your solution’s stable primary-key scheme in the real file.
Practice notes
NoteID | ContactID | Body
N01 | C001 | Asked for a quote
N02 | C001 | Follow up on Friday
N03 | C002 | Confirm delivery addressThe expected result is two notes for Mira and one for Leon. A contact with no notes should show no existing note rows. Write that expectation down before changing the layout. If both contacts show the same three notes, this fixture immediately exposes the problem.
2. Identify the exact occurrences.
Check the layout’s “Show records from” setting, then the portal’s “Show records from” setting. Record both table occurrence names. Two occurrences can point to the same base table but take different relationship paths.
For this fixture, the intended relationship is Contacts::ContactID = Notes::ContactID, using the actual occurrences selected for the layout and portal. Inspect the stored key values on simple layouts based on those occurrences. Confirm that the keys are populated and that the child contains the parent’s ID, not its own NoteID.
Do not match on the person’s name. Names can repeat or change. A portal that works only while a display label matches is fragile even if it passes today’s screenshot check.
3. Separate relationship membership from display filtering.
In the practice copy, inspect the portal filter expression. A filter such as “show open notes” can intentionally hide completed notes. Compare the unfiltered fixture with the filtered result, then restore the intended filter.
A portal filter narrows what that portal displays; it is not a substitute for record access security. If the records contain information that an account must not read, solve that with the appropriate access rules rather than a visual filter.
Also check the initial row, number of visible rows, scrolling and sort order. One visible row without a way to scroll can make the second note seem missing. Sorting can move a newly added note away from the top without removing it.
4. Check the objects inside the row.
If rows appear but their text repeats or stays blank, inspect the field objects. They should belong to the intended related occurrence and be placed within the portal row. A field outside the row can behave differently from a field repeated inside it.
Use a temporary NoteID field in the practice portal to distinguish a record-selection problem from a display problem. If N01 and N02 appear correctly but the note body does not, investigate that field object and its formatting before rebuilding the relationship.
If the only missing row is the blank entry row for creating a new note, treat that as a separate feature question. Displaying existing related records and allowing creation through a relationship are different capabilities.
5. Recheck separation and persistence.
- Mira: N01 and N02, with no Leon note.
- Leon: N03, with no Mira notes.
- A new contact with no notes: no existing note rows.
- An edit committed in the practice file: the correct note remains after changing contacts and reopening.
Repeat the relevant checks using the normal user account. If the issue exists only there, inspect permissions without broadening them. Record the exact failing scenario so the correction can be reviewed.
An XML DDR and DDR Explorer can help trace relationships and layout references. The report describes the exported design; the contact-switching and reopen checks still need to happen in FileMaker.
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Claris references: Creating related-record portals · Filtering portal records · Working with portals. Examples are learning aids; verify them in your own FileMaker working copy.