Causes Of Record Locking - Single User

[daduffy]

Our company has inherited the further development, and existing
support, of an Access based program when we took on a new client.

We have been getting a number of pesky problems which all stem from
record locking.

I have turned off and adjusted the appropriate database settings, but
still do find the locking problem from time to time. The problems seem
to all occur when using the workspace begin/commit transaction. The
reason for using the begin/commit is that when certain actions are
done in this program, being a full GL and inventory program, many
records in different tables are updated. We cannot get away from the
commit transaction since we need all of the changes to fail if just
one fails.

The truly odd thing about the locking is that I get the error when
running the program in a test environment on my own machine. I have a
FE and BE, but they are both residing on my computer with nobody else
connecting to it.

My question is, does somebody have, or know of, a list of the possible
causes of record locking in a single user environment?

Thanks for any help.

Dave

 

[Golfinray]

I would first go into tools/options/advanced and make sure record locking is
off. Then make sure that all users (including yourself) have read/write/edit/
and delete priviledges to the BE file AND the folder it resides in. Also make
sure you go to Microsoft.com and load all service packs and hotfixes.

 

[daduffy]

A single user can lock the record when:

1 - the record being updated needs to be accessed by another form or process
that needs to lock the record, too.  You have to save the updated record
before the other form or process can get a lock on that record.

2 - the table is opened with page level locking and another record on the
same data page is being updated, all records on that data page are locked
until the update on that one record is saved.

If you're getting this record locking when the app is used by a single user,
the locking situation will be much worse with multiple users on the network.
Suggest you redesign your app to avoid excessive locking.

Chris

Chris,

Thank you for the reply. There is no table open, and I have made sure
that locking is turned off. I also do have full rights to the files,
as indicated by Golfinray's post, thanks to you as well.

As to the question about an open form or process locking the record, I
have only one, unbound, form open at the time. That form does have
some combo boxes that are linked to the table in question and would
display part of that record. Is it possible to lock a record from a
combo box? Short of that, nothing else is accessing the database at
all when my process is running.

Thanks again for any help.

Dave