VB6/MS Access point of sale application problem "could not update; currently locked"

[CWogksch]

Hello, Everyone...

My name is Chris Wogksch. I have a point of sale application developed in VB6 using MS Access 2003 as the database. I've been running versions of this app for over eight years, using vb5/Access 97 and later vb6/Access 2000 and 2003, without issue.

Recently, I've started selling my latest version to liquor stores in my local area. The typical installation setup is a peer-to-peer network with three workstations; a back-office workstation/server (where the database and application software resides), and two front-end register workstations. All workstations pull the software and the data from the same folder on the server.

My problem is as follows... The application works great 99% of the time. However, at peak load they often get the following error message when completing a sale... Run time error -2147467259(80004005) Could not update; currently locked. This kicks them out of the application but they can normally get right back in and then continue, and it doesn't happen again. In severe cases, they have to reboot the workstation before they continue.

One customer runs fine Monday through Thursday and again on Saturday, but experiences the above problem on Friday nights shortly before closing, when they are at their busiest.

The application updates the database by performing an open/update. I've read that I should probably change all updated to a sql execute (insert into or update), but to do so now would be time and cost prohibitive.

If anyone has any suggestions as to why this may be happening and any ideas how I can get around it, I'd greatly appreciate it.

Thank you.

[PEB]

Hi,

Instaed your users working simoultaneously in 1 database it's preferable to have a temporary mdb in each machine where your users save the information... You can gat the consequtive numbers from the centralized database using some kid of sequence but the other things - on local machine and then transfered to the main database - when your users finish their work day and the hard hours?

Best regards

[MMcCarthy]

I imagine the database is set to shared with edited record locking. Therefore at peak time with multiple users more than one user is writing to a record at the same time. Access won't allow this.

Check the code behind the complete a sale command. You might find that creating a recordset and updating or adding to it rather than inserting or updating data directly to a table will resolve this issue.