Work Offline "if" SharePoint Connection hangs/fails

[Brilstern]

Issue: SharePoint hangs (not exactly offline so MS Access does not switch to offline mode) and Access freezes on open.

Details: When my Access DB opens, it is prompted for a user to establish who is using the database to use in emailing/logging. This data is referenced from an online table (SharePoint) that requires authentication.

Check out this link for details on the authentication.

Question: My envisioned solution is to open the database and for it to capture the hang into an error handler; then move to an offline version of the database to allow the user to continue working when the SharePoint site is unavailable. How might I accomplish this?

Sudo Code:

User opens database
Authentication prompt pops up
If user can't/doesn't authenticate within "time"
Cancel authentication and work offline

I know this might require me to change where the data lives for the "logged in" user, but is this possible?

I have looked {elsewhere} as an option, but I am not having any luck with forcing SharePoint to work offline.

[NeoPa]

I'm guessing, from the wording of the title, that you are not aware of a way to determine or capture when it is that the site is unavailable. I'm guessing that if it simply hangs then you have nothing to work with as that's a baseline requirement for handling such a situation.

Other people may know more of course, but that would seem to me to be the starting point of the whole issue. Without that the rest is academic.

[twinnyfo]

Stevan,

My experience has been that when I have accessed a SP library in a manner other than “using SharePoint”, the access will time out after a certain amount of inactivity on the site. I don’t know if this is due to my network nerds or server settings or a SharePoint feature.

Just thinking out loud here, but perhaps there is a way for your DB to somehow “ping” the SP library using a form’s Timer Event, maybe just to access some random data. This might keep the connection “open”? I don’t know enough about how SP’s connections work (and wee’ve discussed some of these challenges previously, I know).

Don’t know if that will hepp.