Your inFlow On-Premise database getting corrupted is a rare circumstance that does not happen very often. Most commonly, it’s a result of hardware failure on your computer, like a bad hard drive. Before proceeding, please be sure that an inFlow representative has confirmed with you that the problem is, in fact, database corruption and not, for example, incorrect products or prices entered into the system.

Unfortunately database corruption is bad news, it means that there is a serious problem with your inFlow database, and that you may lose some or all of what you’ve entered into inFlow.

Behind the scenes, inFlow relies on a Microsoft SQL Server database to store its data, like your products and orders. If SQL Server is reporting that the database is corrupted in some way, then this is beyond our expertise to solve. We recommend that you hire a local database administrator (DBA) with expertise in data recovery in SQL Server to take a look at the issue and maximize the chance that your data can be recovered.

Here is some technical information that may be useful:

inFlow installs a separate instance of SQL Server called INFLOWSQL. By default, inFlow uses LocalDB 2014 on Windows 7, Windows 8 and Windows 10, and SQL Server 2005 on other operating systems. The inFlow database contains all of the important data (the product list, etc.).

The inFlowMeta and inFlowSample databases are not important — if only these databases are corrupted it can be corrected by making a backup of the inFlow database, then uninstalling and reinstalling the inFlow program, then restoring the backup.

search your inflow backups for the last working one

Start by finding the backup files that inFlow created automatically for you.

Windows Vista, 7, 8 and 10: C:\ProgramData\inFlow Inventory\Backup

Windows XP: C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\inFlow Inventory\Backup (

If you have created your own backups, include those too. The basic procedure we will do is start with the newest backup and try to restore it and see if there are any problems. You can restore data from the Main Menu > General > Restore Data. If the restored backup is still showing the issue, try the next newest backup until we either run out of backups or find one that works. You will still need to re-enter any data entered since the last successful backup, but this approach may save most of your data.

if inflow is still partially usable, export and re-import your data

If the database is corrupted but still usable (i.e. you can still run inFlow and perform most operations), you may want to consider exporting your data out of inFlow into CSV format (Main Menu -> General -> Export Data), reinstalling inFlow, and then importing the data back. This is an imperfect option since much of your information will be lost (e.g. full transaction history, company settings, picking or shipping data, etc.). You can follow the instructions here to do so.

other recovery procedures

There are other recovery procedures that are beyond our expertise but that you may attempt with the aid of a database administrator. Here are some links to suggestions that may be useful starting points:
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2470692/recovering-transaction-log-from-corrupt-sql-database