Cannot open MDB

A

alex

Using Access ’03.
I’ve been having strange problems with Access lately…

I’ll attempt to access my mdb by using the shift bypass and when I do
the lbd will open/execute but the mdb won’t open; nothing happens.
I’ll try to delete the ldb but it says that it’s being used by another
person or program which is impossible.

The only way to get back into the file is by restarting my computer,
which works every time (I can then delete the ldb which is still
visible after restart). This sometimes happens daily, even after a
compact/repair.

What I described above actually happens to other mdb’s on my computer.

Has anyone had this problem?
alex
 
J

Jerry Whittle

Just for safety's sake, make a backup of your .mdb files to a flash drive or
DVD. I doubt that it's a hard drive or other PC problem, but you never know.
Backups are good to have anyway.

If your databases were on a network drive, I'd say to check for permissions.
You need read, write, create, and delete privs for the database file(s) AND
the entire folder holding those files. Even if the databases are on your PC's
hard drive, it might be worth checking anyway. Also make sure that you have
plenty of space on your hard drive - like 1 GB minimum.

Next I'd be seeing if your virus checker could be the problem. You could try
disabling it for a short while to test it.

On the flip side, it's possible that you have a virus that is causing
problems. Is only Access the problem or are there other strange things
happening?
 
A

alex

Just for safety's sake, make a backup of your .mdb files to a flash driveor
DVD. I doubt that it's a hard drive or other PC problem, but you never know.
Backups are good to have anyway.

If your databases were on a network drive, I'd say to check for permissions.
You need read, write, create, and delete privs for the database file(s) AND
the entire folder holding those files. Even if the databases are on your PC's
hard drive, it might be worth checking anyway. Also make sure that you have
plenty of space on your hard drive - like 1 GB minimum.

Next I'd be seeing if your virus checker could be the problem. You could try
disabling it for a short while to test it.

On the flip side, it's possible that you have a virus that is causing
problems. Is only Access the problem or are there other strange things
happening?
--
Jerry Whittle, Microsoft Access MVP
Light. Strong. Cheap. Pick two. Keith Bontrager - Bicycle Builder.









- Show quoted text -

Hi Jerry, thanks for responding.
It's only Access that seems to be having this problem, and it has only
been going on now for about a week or two. Nothing has changed that I
know of.
All of the permissions seem to be fine...as I mentioned above, when I
restart or log off my computer, then log on again, everything is fine
(which may point to a network problem--but what?). All of the mdb
files that I access are on a network server.
 
A

alex

Hi Jerry,  thanks for responding.
It's only Access that seems to be having this problem, and it has only
been going on now for about a week or two.  Nothing has changed that I
know of.
All of the permissions seem to be fine...as I mentioned above, when I
restart or log off my computer, then log on again, everything is fine
(which may point to a network problem--but what?).  All of the mdb
files that I access are on a network server.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

I probably should have mentioned Jerry that one of my users was
getting a strange licensing error on her computer when she tried to
access an mde file about two weeks ago. It seems we had a corrupt dll
file. Maybe that's my problem? When I log out, then log in, maybe it
gets reset. It has now locked up on my three times this morning.
 
J

Jerry Whittle

Double check the file and folder permissions on the network drives. Someone
could have messed with them recently. Also if you added any new users lately,
they might not have the properly permissions.
 
A

alex

Double check the file and folder permissions on the network drives. Someone
could have messed with them recently. Also if you added any new users lately,
they might not have the properly permissions.
--
Jerry Whittle, Microsoft Access MVP
Light. Strong. Cheap. Pick two. Keith Bontrager - Bicycle Builder.






- Show quoted text -

All the permissions look fine...
I'm not locked out of the mdb everytime; it's rather random. If the
folder permissions changed, wouldn't it be rather consistent?
 
J

John W. Vinson

All of the permissions seem to be fine...as I mentioned above, when I
restart or log off my computer, then log on again, everything is fine
(which may point to a network problem--but what?). All of the mdb
files that I access are on a network server.

You DO have a split architecture, with a frontend on the client linked to
tables on the server... right?

If so, try opening the .mdb "master" file for the frontend. DELETE all the
table links and use File... Get External Data... Link to relink them. Make a
new .mde and distribute it. There might have been some change to the tables or
to the linkage that is causing this symptom.
 
A

alex

You DO have a split architecture, with a frontend on the client linked to
tables on the server... right?

If so, try opening the .mdb "master" file for the frontend. DELETE all the
table links and use File... Get External Data... Link to relink them. Make a
new .mde and distribute it. There might have been some change to the tables or
to the linkage that is causing this symptom.

Hi John,
Yes, of course, my db is split.
My mdb is on a server and the mde gets copied to the user's personal
drive (which acts as their local drive) and is opened with this code:
Dim stAppName As String
stAppName = "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\OFFICE11\MSACCESS.EXE
" & DestinationFile
Call Shell(stAppName, vbMaximizedFocus)

DestinationFile is the mde. My company does not allow anything to be
stored on the actual hard disc.

Keep in mind that it's the mdb causing me grief. The mde seems to be
working fine right now!
I'm going to try what you suggested. Thanks for your help.
 
H

HeyNow

Hi Alex,

I'm a rookie here, so pardon me if this is too simple but I haven't seen it
suggested by anyone else yet.

I had similar problems with my a2k mdb. I ran all the updates available for
access2000 on all the user's computers and that took care of it.

I don't know if there are updates for Access 2003 but if there are, do all
the users have them? If not, you might try that. But all users need to be
updated.

Also, I found running task manager helped. For some reason, the Access task
listed there was kinda running, but not totally....thus the ldb stayed but
the whole thing wasn't running. Deleting that incompletely running task of
Access from the task manager allowed me to actually run a good one without
having to reboot.

Something else I've found...if a user closes Access but then quickly
re-opens it again before the ldb has had a chance to be deleted, Access
won't open correctly, but the ldb has like...frozen there. Can't open it
correctly from then on. Sometimes the task manager helps with this,
sometimes not and a reboot is required. Win98 did this ALOT! WinXP less
so, and haven't even tried WinVista nor 7 with this symptom.

No MVP here, just a user trying to learn-
me

Using Access ’03.
I’ve been having strange problems with Access lately…

I’ll attempt to access my mdb by using the shift bypass and when I do
the lbd will open/execute but the mdb won’t open; nothing happens.
I’ll try to delete the ldb but it says that it’s being used by another
person or program which is impossible.

The only way to get back into the file is by restarting my computer,
which works every time (I can then delete the ldb which is still
visible after restart). This sometimes happens daily, even after a
compact/repair.

What I described above actually happens to other mdb’s on my computer.

Has anyone had this problem?
alex
 
A

Armen Stein

Also, I found running task manager helped. For some reason, the Access task
listed there was kinda running, but not totally....thus the ldb stayed but
the whole thing wasn't running. Deleting that incompletely running task of
Access from the task manager allowed me to actually run a good one without
having to reboot.

This is a good thing to check. Also, is it possible that this machine
has both Access 2003 and Access 2007 installed? I just heard a report
from one of my employees that on his machine this configuration causes
the Access EXE to stay running in Task Manager and need to be killed
manually.

Armen Stein
Microsoft Access MVP
www.JStreetTech.com
 

Ask a Question

Want to reply to this thread or ask your own question?

You'll need to choose a username for the site, which only take a couple of moments. After that, you can post your question and our members will help you out.

Ask a Question

Top