Networking Database

[Gary]

I have recently placed an access database (back end) on a network folder.
The standalone pc's accessing the network have in their own respective C
drives a copy of the database (minus the table). I have linked the backend
source table to these front end database copies.
The networking has been working nicely but the other day, I got a message
when trying to access the database stating that the format is not a
recognizable one... ie i simply could not open it.
I think it was corrupted. Anyhow, I deleted the database and I went to use a
copy of a front end database, minus the data to recreate the main network
database. But these too were corrupted as I could not open them either.
Finally I managed to get a seperate backup copy of the database and set it
up as the network database to replace the corrupted one.

Note the following if these may have contributed to the corruption:
- I did not split the database as i had simply copied the database to each
of the pc's on the network (minus the table data) and then linked the source
backend table to the access database copies in the pc's.
- I had not set up a workgroup - do I really need to ? will that affect the
database in the long term ?
- in the Options section, under the Default Record Locking area, i had
ticked "no locks". I feel maybe I should have ticked "Edited Record" to have
avoided the corruption of the database as there would not have been a clash
in editing a particular record between users at any given time.
- finally, i did not compact and repair the database and certainly not on a
regular basis as recommended by microsoft, which may have contributed to the
corruption ?
Any comments from the above as to the possible cause so I can avoid it in
the future.

 

[Guest]

There are certainly many things that could have caused your problem. One
definitely would be someone (not necessarily you, depending on how the
front-end is designed) attempting to compact the db while someone else was in
it.

You might also look to see if someone has a newer version of Access, and
accidentally upgraded the db to their version.

I doubt it was a locking issue, as Access will offer the message the a
"Record has been changed, are you sure you wish to update the record?" (sic).

Good luck.

Sharkbyte