A2003 Bugs

[Smartin]

I am sure I have seen this posted before but cannot find it now.

Can anyone share a concise list of Access "features" that you recommend
to disable in A2003 (or similar versions) due to buggy nature, along
with a synopsis of the bugs involved?

I have read Allen Browne's tips at http://allenbrowne.com/tips.html
(great stuff, BTW). I am looking for a quick read I can share with my
Access developer coworkers to get them engaged (read: scared) in under
sixty seconds.

TIA

 

[Allen Browne]

Smartin, I'm not sure I want to be part of scaring people away from Access
(any version), so it bothers me that you say you want to use the information
in that way, even if your comment may have been tongue-in-cheek.

Microsoft should be highly commended on providing a superb knowledgebase of
information about their products:
http://support.microsoft.com/search/?adv=1&spid=915
They acknowledge bugs, suggest work arounds, explain misunderstandings,
provide examples, suggest sources of information, indicate what the service
packs fix, and so on. That is a powerful accumulation of knowledge for us as
users and developers.

We can also inform each other about how to avoid the traps we discover, and
get the best mileage from this amazing little desktop database, which is
probably the best selling database of all time. Sure, I'd like them to fix
these bugs, and sometimes they do. For example, a whole bunch of filter bugs
have been fixed in Access 2007.

If you are seriously interested in how to configure Access 2003 to avoid
problems, this might help:
http://allenbrowne.com/ser-48.html#usability

 

[Smartin]

Smartin, I'm not sure I want to be part of scaring people away from Access
(any version), so it bothers me that you say you want to use the information
in that way, even if your comment may have been tongue-in-cheek.

Microsoft should be highly commended on providing a superb knowledgebase of
information about their products:
http://support.microsoft.com/search/?adv=1&spid=915
They acknowledge bugs, suggest work arounds, explain misunderstandings,
provide examples, suggest sources of information, indicate what the service
packs fix, and so on. That is a powerful accumulation of knowledge for us as
users and developers.

We can also inform each other about how to avoid the traps we discover, and
get the best mileage from this amazing little desktop database, which is
probably the best selling database of all time. Sure, I'd like them to fix
these bugs, and sometimes they do. For example, a whole bunch of filter bugs
have been fixed in Access 2007.

If you are seriously interested in how to configure Access 2003 to avoid
problems, this might help:
http://allenbrowne.com/ser-48.html#usability

Thanks Allen. You are absolutely right: I colored my request entirely
the wrong way by suggesting I want to scare my colleagues (or anyone
else) away from Access.

I apologize for the inference that your web site, or information
presented in this newsgroup, was intended to scare people. No offense
was intended.

If I haven't said so before, I am extremely grateful to you and others
in this community for sharing your knowledge so freely.

You said it best: "Ignorance is not bliss". I was looking for that quick
hit to open eyes and raise awareness. The pages you referenced above are
exactly what I was looking for.

Thanks again.

 

[John]

Hi Allen,
I want to thank you very much for your site and would like to repeat
Smartins comment: "I am extremely grateful to you and others in this
community for sharing your knowledge so freely." He says it well.

I am a relatively new Access user and certainly don't mean to be
disrespectful or argumentative at all, but I can tell you that I am
extremely discouraged & scared after reading your article refernced at
http://allenbrowne.com/ser-48.html#usability
Especially your "Bad News" comment and the statement.that "Most of these
issues have been present for four years, through three versions and many
service packs, so do not expect to see them fixed any time soon."
It suggests that Microsoft is not very responsive to it's users at all. I
can't imagine that that is actually true, but the question certainly does
have to be asked; Why is it so?
Thank You again
John

 

[Allen Browne]

Hi John

Experienced developers understand that all software has bugs.
As you become aware of them, you decide which ones to fix.

Obviously I don't have access to Microsoft's decision matrix, but I imagine
it involves factors such as these:
a) How many users does this bug affect?
b) How difficult (i.e. expensive) is it to fix?
c) What is the likelihood that fixing this bug will break existing software?
(Some people may be relying on the bug as a "feature".)
d) What is the likelihood that we could introduce other bugs in fixing this
one?
e) What effect does the bug have on users? (Crash? Annoyance?)

So, Microsoft makes its decisions and fixes bugs. There have been 2 or 3
service packs for each version of Access, plus hotfixes for issues in
between. They examine the statistics from crashes (when you choose "Send
Report".) They proactively involve testers to make sure it's right before
release, so Office 2007 beta has had more than 3 million downloads.

But there seems to be one really important class of bug they don't fix in
Access, and that's the engine-level bug. For me, these are worst nightmares,
worse than the bugs that crash Access. If Access is shut down by Windows, I
know something went wrong. But if a query just gives me wrong answers with
no indication that the answer is wrong, it undermines the credibility of
Access. How can I trust this software? How can I make decisions when the
answers Access gives me may be insidiously inaccurate? I understand if you
find that scary!

It seems that these bugs don't get fixed because:
a) Users don't report them. (They don't even know the answers Access gives
them are wrong.)
b) It is difficult and time-consuming (expensive) to go that deep and fix
the engine-level bugs.
c) There is a high chance of breaking existing software (i.e. existing
queries will no longer give the answers people are used to.)
d) There is a high chance of introducing new bugs. Since everything uses the
engine, the side effects are enormously difficult and time-consuming to
test.
e) If no-one complains (since they don't know it's wrong), who cares?

My argument to Microsoft is that if they just keep building new features on
top without fixing the foundation, the superstructure will eventually
topple. Regardless of the expense and difficulty, these "core" bugs should
be fixed in my view. But I'm only one user.

So, it looks like Access 2007 will have the same core bugs.
A query can fail if it has any of these:
- PARAMETERS clause
- SELECT clause
- DISTINCT predicate
- FROM clause
- WHERE clause
- GROUP BY clause
- ORDER BY clause.
So, every Access user must be aware of what these bugs are, and how to
avoid/work around them.

I wish I had better news, but I cannot hold out much hope for these core
bugs to be fixed.

 

[John]

Thank you for the detailed response Allen,
And I have to say that I'm actually laughing while I'm typing this reply.
I am flabbergasted.
First, I have to make sure that I am understanding you correctly.
I will read your article again, but for now, I have a simple question.
You state the following:
A query can fail if it has any of these:
- PARAMETERS clause
- SELECT clause
- DISTINCT predicate
- FROM clause
- WHERE clause
- GROUP BY clause
- ORDER BY clause.

My understanding is that a query intrinsically HAS the Select clause. It MAY
have a Distinct parameter.
Any query automatically HAS the FROM clause, & it MAY have a Where Clause,
etc...

You seem to be suggesting that the query can therefore fail? Simply by
virtue of containing any these statements? This suggests that Access is
completely UNRELIABLE? Am I understanding you correctly?
If so...
Why am I using Access. Why is ANYONE using Access.
Simply for it's ease of use.....to give me false answers!?
Now I'm really scared...(ha ha)
Please, can you alay any of my fears...?

Regards
John
PS: I must say that you are being very polite to Microsoft by simply calling
these issues a "BUG"

 

[Allen Browne]

Hi, John. I'm trying to give a fair and balanced perspective here.

To suggest that Microsoft is "not very responsive to its users" would be a
misleading generalization.

To suggest that there are many, serious, unaddressed issues in the core of
Access is fair.

It is certainly not the case that any query with these clauses will fail.

It is the case that, every time you are asked to write or fix a query, you
must consider whether this particular query will fail due to bugs in Access.
And almost every clause in the query is a candidate for failure.

Details of the conditions under which each clause fails, with a
demonstration of each one:
http://allenbrowne.com/tips.html#Bug

 

[Tony Toews]

Why am I using Access. Why is ANYONE using Access.
Simply for it's ease of use.....to give me false answers!?
Now I'm really scared...(ha ha)
Please, can you alay any of my fears...?

But the other side is that I've never, to my knowledge, run into any
of the items on Allen's query list. Or, rather I have come across
some of them but have figured out my own work around a long time ago.

Doctor, doctor, it hurts when I do this.

Well don't do that then.

So long as you are aware of the issues then you can do the appropriate
work arounds.

Tony
--
Tony Toews, Microsoft Access MVP
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