Constantly corrupting Access 2002 database

[heather e blair]

We have an Access 2002 database of about 35 M with about 7 users. The data
lives on the server (Windows 2000 server), while the queries, forms, reports,
etc. live in a file that is on each person's C drive. There is also a
workgroup file to set the permissions for various groups.

Everybody is running Windows 2000 on their local computer.

People start using the database about 7:30 or 8 in the morning, and then
around noon, one by one they can no longer connect. When I try to open it
I get the error that it is an unrecognizable file or corrupt. If I open it
exclusively, I can rebuild it OK.

What could be causing this? Nobody is exiting their database improperly,
and it worked just fine for months and months until this week!

I even created a new data file and imported the existing tables into it,
but the same error happened.

Another smaller split database with three users has been acting the same way.
Could it be our network connections? How would I troubleshoot and fix this
problem.

- H

--
"Verbosity leads to unclear, inarticulate things." -- Vice President
Dan Quayle, 11/30/88

[Tony Toews]

h4**@midway.uchicago.edu (heather e blair) wrote:

We have an Access 2002 database of about 35 M with about 7 users. The data
lives on the server (Windows 2000 server), while the queries, forms, reports,
etc. live in a file that is on each person's C drive. There is also a
workgroup file to set the permissions for various groups.
Good, glad to see things are split.
People start using the database about 7:30 or 8 in the morning, and then
around noon, one by one they can no longer connect. When I try to open it
I get the error that it is an unrecognizable file or corrupt. If I open it
exclusively, I can rebuild it OK.

What could be causing this? Nobody is exiting their database improperly,
and it worked just fine for months and months until this week!

I even created a new data file and imported the existing tables into it,
but the same error happened.

Another smaller split database with three users has been acting the same way.
Could it be our network connections? How would I troubleshoot and fix this
problem.

It could be a lot of things. Has anything changed? Are there new set of patches on
the server? Some new hardware somewhere? A new client PC?

The next thing to check is the OpLocks setting on the server.

For more information on corruption including possible causes, determining the
offending PC, retrieving your data, links, official MS KB articles and a list of
vendors who state they can fix corruption see the Microsoft Access Corruption FAQ at
http://www.granite.ab.ca/access/corruptmdbs.htm

Tony
--
Tony Toews, Microsoft Access MVP
Please respond only in the newsgroups so that others can
read the entire thread of messages.
Microsoft Access Links, Hints, Tips & Accounting Systems at
http://www.granite.ab.ca/accsmstr.htm

[David W. Fenton]

h4**@midway.uchicago.edu (heather e blair) wrote in
news:qj**************@news.uchicago.edu:

What could be causing this? Nobody is exiting their database
improperly, and it worked just fine for months and months until
this week!

Check that all users' installations of Access are at SR1a or later
and that Jet 4 is at service pack 6 or later. If even one user is
not up-to-date on both of these (not one, but both), it can lead to
corruption.

Once you've got everyone on a stable version of Access (which the
original release of A2K and all versions of Jet 4 before SP6 are
not), then you should start looking at other issues.

It's the first thing I alway check when a client experiences
corruption, and it's almost always because a clean workstation has
somehow been reverted to an earlier version (something got
re-installed, or the workstation was rebuilt or replaced or
whatever).

--
David W. Fenton http://www.bway.net/~dfenton
dfenton at bway dot net http://www.bway.net/~dfassoc

[Tom van Stiphout]

On Tue, 04 May 2004 03:31:14 GMT, "David W. Fenton"
<dX********@bway.net.invalid> wrote:

Everything David said. And you need to write some code that at
startup time checks for these things, and presents an error message to
the user ("the minimum version x of Office was not found" or "the
minimum version y of Jet was not found") and quits, and/or sends an
email to the administrator.

-Tom.

h4**@midway.uchicago.edu (heather e blair) wrote in
news:qj**************@news.uchicago.edu:

What could be causing this? Nobody is exiting their database
improperly, and it worked just fine for months and months until
this week!

Check that all users' installations of Access are at SR1a or later
and that Jet 4 is at service pack 6 or later. If even one user is
not up-to-date on both of these (not one, but both), it can lead to
corruption.

Once you've got everyone on a stable version of Access (which the
original release of A2K and all versions of Jet 4 before SP6 are
not), then you should start looking at other issues.

It's the first thing I alway check when a client experiences
corruption, and it's almost always because a clean workstation has
somehow been reverted to an earlier version (something got
re-installed, or the workstation was rebuilt or replaced or
whatever).

[Donna Carpenter]

I was having a similar problem recently. It may seem too simple, but
sometimes compacting the database causes it to corrupt.

I found that when Compact on close was enabled, and multiple users
were exiting the database in close proximity, the database could not
compact properly and became corrupted.

Check that Compact on Close is not enabled. This means you will have
to create a utility to compact your database at start or end of
business, but it keeps the corruption down to a minimum.

Tom van Stiphout <to*****@no.spam.cox.net> wrote in message news:<vl********************************@4ax.com>. ..

On Tue, 04 May 2004 03:31:14 GMT, "David W. Fenton"
<dX********@bway.net.invalid> wrote:

Everything David said. And you need to write some code that at
startup time checks for these things, and presents an error message to
the user ("the minimum version x of Office was not found" or "the
minimum version y of Jet was not found") and quits, and/or sends an
email to the administrator.

-Tom.

h4**@midway.uchicago.edu (heather e blair) wrote in
news:qj**************@news.uchicago.edu:

What could be causing this? Nobody is exiting their database
improperly, and it worked just fine for months and months until
this week!

Check that all users' installations of Access are at SR1a or later
and that Jet 4 is at service pack 6 or later. If even one user is
not up-to-date on both of these (not one, but both), it can lead to
corruption.

Once you've got everyone on a stable version of Access (which the
original release of A2K and all versions of Jet 4 before SP6 are
not), then you should start looking at other issues.

It's the first thing I alway check when a client experiences
corruption, and it's almost always because a clean workstation has
somehow been reverted to an earlier version (something got
re-installed, or the workstation was rebuilt or replaced or
whatever).

[David W. Fenton]

do***@acwm.co.la.ca.us (Donna Carpenter) wrote in
news:be************************@posting.google.com :

I was having a similar problem recently. It may seem too simple,
but sometimes compacting the database causes it to corrupt.

I found that when Compact on close was enabled, and multiple users
were exiting the database in close proximity, the database could
not compact properly and became corrupted.
Compact on close is a bad idea, simply because it is very often the
case that you want to leave a damaged database alone -- that is, the
last thing you want to do is compact.

I turn this off on any Access installation I'm dealing with.
Check that Compact on Close is not enabled. This means you will
have to create a utility to compact your database at start or end
of business, but it keeps the corruption down to a minimum.

If the application is split, it really shouldn't make any
difference, as you're only compacting the front end, not the data
MDB.

If your database is not split, then the problem is not with compact
on close, but with your application design.

--
David W. Fenton http://www.bway.net/~dfenton
dfenton at bway dot net http://www.bway.net/~dfassoc

[Jonathan LaRosa]

i had a client that this was happening to also. turned out to be a
terminal services user that was not closing their sessions properly.
don't know if this applies to you or not (i feel like you would have
mentioned it if it did), but just thought i would mention it.

good luck.

jon

[Bill Elgie]

If you have W96 hardware & WNT & W2000 & XP e same network unless your
backend data is on the W98 machine you will corrupt the database,
sometimes within 5 mins! Get shot of the W98 pcs and put XP / W2000 in
their place. All of the other things mentioned don't help but mixing
Access with W98 & XP etc is a disaster.
Regards Bill

[Tony Toews]

en********@ukonline.co.uk (Bill Elgie) wrote:

If you have W96 hardware & WNT & W2000 & XP e same network unless your
backend data is on the W98 machine you will corrupt the database,
sometimes within 5 mins! Get shot of the W98 pcs and put XP / W2000 in
their place. All of the other things mentioned don't help but mixing
Access with W98 & XP etc is a disaster.

I would think that's the OpLocks problem which setting the appropriate registry key
fixes quite nicely. http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=296264

Tony
--
Tony Toews, Microsoft Access MVP
Please respond only in the newsgroups so that others can
read the entire thread of messages.
Microsoft Access Links, Hints, Tips & Accounting Systems at
http://www.granite.ab.ca/accsmstr.htm