Access Locked us out of DB!

[truthlover]

The database I created went live Monday and twice a very bizzare thing has happened -- for no reason we have been able to figure out, the DB will suddenly started requiring a password that was never set, so no one can use it (and any data entered is lost).

The first time it happened, one of our IT guys ran a password utility and though he wasnt able to decipher the whole password, what he did manage to recover are characters often used in encryption. I ended up replacing the file with a backup. Everything was fine for most of today when it happened again.

I have no information from the first time it happened, but this afternoon, all was fine until my supervisor was was closing the DB. He had been in the application, entering work orders and doing everything with no sign of trouble, but when he shut down, the dialog to enter a password popped up. He closed out the window without entering a password. Ever since then, no one can access the DB because it asks for a password that no one created.

The weird thing is *he* can still open and use the database, but certain abilities (like backing up the database) arent just greyed out, they dont even exist as an option. But no one else can access it. And since it happened in the middle of the day, any data was lost.

The DB is in 2002-2003 format and everyone has Access 2002. We tried unsetting the pasword and clearing the password but neither helped.

Does anyone have any idea what's going on or what's causing this bizzare behavior? This application is something we need up and running ASAP, so if anyone can help, I'd be extremely grateful.

Thanks so much for everyone's help

[truthlover]

Just an update on the situation. Our IT guy determined my supervisor's computer was missing Service Pack 3. Once it was installed, he could no longer open the file either.

So this morning, I replace the corrupt file with Tuesday's backup and so far it's working without incident (including by my supervisor)

Hopefully that is the end of the problem.

The database I created went live Monday and twice a very bizzare thing has happened -- for no reason we have been able to figure out, the DB will suddenly started requiring a password that was never set, so no one can use it (and any data entered is lost).

The first time it happened, one of our IT guys ran a password utility and though he wasnt able to decipher the whole password, what he did manage to recover are characters often used in encryption. I ended up replacing the file with a backup. Everything was fine for most of today when it happened again.

I have no information from the first time it happened, but this afternoon, all was fine until my supervisor was was closing the DB. He had been in the application, entering work orders and doing everything with no sign of trouble, but when he shut down, the dialog to enter a password popped up. He closed out the window without entering a password. Ever since then, no one can access the DB because it asks for a password that no one created.

The weird thing is *he* can still open and use the database, but certain abilities (like backing up the database) arent just greyed out, they dont even exist as an option. But no one else can access it. And since it happened in the middle of the day, any data was lost.

The DB is in 2002-2003 format and everyone has Access 2002. We tried unsetting the pasword and clearing the password but neither helped.

Does anyone have any idea what's going on or what's causing this bizzare behavior? This application is something we need up and running ASAP, so if anyone can help, I'd be extremely grateful.

Thanks so much for everyone's help

[Scott Price]

There are reports of Office 2003 SP3 introducing bugs, see here, but no mention in that article of the specific problem you are experiencing.

It sounds to me like you have some kind of corruption possibly being introduced through the network. Here are a few links that give considerable information about corruption:

http://allenbrowne.com/ser-25.html
http://allenbrowne.com/ser-47.html
http://www.everythingaccess.com/tuto...n-Repair-Guide

On the last link, especially see the point 4 under the first section: "What causes database corruption?"

Regards,
Scott