latest Jet DB/Access XP causing corruption in MEMO fields.

[DigitalVinyl]

We have a Access97 that converted to Access XP.

For the first time in 4 years we get constant record corruptions that
leaad to DB crashes. They *ALWAYS* occur in MEMO fields. The memo
fields become corrupted. After that everything goes down hill and the
record usually ends up trashed completely with the autonumber field
being in scientific notation and records can't be added to the table
anymore.

Now memo fields were often corrupted before by users stomping on
eachothers records and the result was that BOTH users lost their data
and the record simply contained a #ERROR# which could be delted and
retyped. Now it seems to escalated to a full blown corruption. THis
started happening the DAY we converted to WIndows XP/Office XP.

I've followed a numbr of troubleshooting, including making sure the
server and clients were all XP and disabling locks, and installing new
networks to eliminate erros and it didn't make a difference.

Is there a known issue with memo field handling--specifically on
contention-- in Access XP?

Is there a different way of providing a large text field without using
MEMO fields?


DiGiTAL_ViNYL (no email)

 

[Pieter Wijnen]

Do not use Access for storage ...
I would strongly recdcomend Access as a frontend to *any* application
but I'd also reccomend using a database for storing the data (MSSQL or
Oracle)
the only 2 Acc versions I'm (pretty) sure of are 2.0 & '97

Pieter

 

[Tony Toews]

For the first time in 4 years we get constant record corruptions that
leaad to DB crashes. They *ALWAYS* occur in MEMO fields. The memo
fields become corrupted. After that everything goes down hill and the
record usually ends up trashed completely with the autonumber field
being in scientific notation and records can't be added to the table
anymore.

Scientific notation usually means the room for display on the
form/datasheet view is too small. What happens when you widen the
field?

Now memo fields were often corrupted before by users stomping on
eachothers records and the result was that BOTH users lost their data
and the record simply contained a #ERROR# which could be delted and
retyped. Now it seems to escalated to a full blown corruption. THis
started happening the DAY we converted to WIndows XP/Office XP.

This would make a lot of sense. That the symptoms would occur as
soon as you changed OS/Access version that is.

I've followed a numbr of troubleshooting, including making sure the
server and clients were all XP and disabling locks, and installing new
networks to eliminate erros and it didn't make a difference.

The server is XP? Win XP Pro can support a maximum of ten
connections to my knowledge.

Disabling locks? Presumably you mean OpLocks. You've rebooted the
server?

For more information on corruption including possible causes,
determining the offending PC, retrieving your data, links, official MS
KB articles and a list of vendors who state they can fix corruption
see the Microsoft Access Corruption FAQ at
http://www.granite.ab.ca/access/corruptmdbs.htm

Is there a known issue with memo field handling--specifically on
contention-- in Access XP?

Another possibility might be different versions of Jet on different
systems. Verify that msjet40.dll is the same version on all the
systems.

What I've done is use the various API calls available and am checking
the version number and date/time of a crucial dll, msjetxx.dll, to
ensure it matches what I have on my system. See the tips page at my
website for more details including sample code: Verify Appropriate Jet
Service Pack is installed www.granite.ab.ca\access\verifyjetsp.htm

Is there a different way of providing a large text field without using
MEMO fields?

Another approach one person used in A97 before the memo corruption
problems were mostly fixed back then was to write his own code to chop
up the memo field in 255 byte chunks and write them to another table
as individual records. Then he'd recombine them back into the forms.
A lot of work and rather ugly though.

Tony
--
Tony Toews, Microsoft Access MVP
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