[AccessD] [Access D] Corruption of Database and Other Weird S ymptoms

Jim Hewson JHewson at karta.com
Wed Apr 23 07:42:22 CDT 2003


I had a similar case not too long ago.
The information I got from Microsoft was the error was caused by the temp
folder was missing or the environment variable "Temp" or "TMP" was not
directed to the proper location.  I did as William suggested and used the
Jet Comp Utility and I also made sure the variable was correct.  The temp
directory had been deleted and a new value for the variable was established.
It is now working.
I would do both.  Check the Environment variables (Start - Control Panel -
System - Advanced tab - Environment Variables) and use the Jet Comp.
HTH
Jim

-----Original Message-----
From: Tina Norris Fields [mailto:tinanfields at torchlake.com]
Sent: Tuesday, April 22, 2003 5:04 PM
To: accessd at databaseadvisors.com
Subject: [AccessD] [Access D] Corruption of Database and Other Weird
Symptoms



Hi - Has anyone else experienced something like this?

Setup is a small TCP IP network - 1 PC running WIN98 and Office 2000 - 2 
PCs running WINXP and Office XP
Database was created in A2K, and resides in a shared folder on one of 
the 2 PCs running WINXP and Office XP - (not split into BE and FE)
Shared folder mapped as drive G: as seen by the other 2 PCs.

Database is a membership records sort of thing - households, the people 
in the households, memberships attributed to the individual or family - 
volunteers, season ticket holders - that sort of very ordinary information.

It was working, apparently perfectly, on Tuesday, April 15 - accessed by 
users on all 3 PCs at one time or another.  On Thursday, the office 
secretary could not open the database - she got the error message that 
the database was of an unrecognized format.  Several attempts were made 
from the secretary's computer (WIN98) and from the executive director's 
computer (WINXP) - always the error was unrecognized format, sometimes 
included the error number 3343.  The Repair Utility was tried - 
unrecognized format.

Next effort was to make a new blank database and import the objects from 
the old one.  HA!  Access crashed just trying to create a blank database!  

Whenever Access tried and failed to open the database (2K and XP), the 
network also partially failed, making the secretary's computer invisible 
to the executive director's computer.

The network man found that there were way too many temporary internet 
files on the secretary's computer, cleaned them out, and reset the 
default for IE to take out the trash when it closed.  Then he 
reestablished the network connections and tried to do anything about 
opening or copying or repairing the database - crash!!! And lost 
connection, or at least apparently lost connection.

His theory was that there had been sufficient temporary internet files 
to cripple WIN98 memory (and swap file), which may, indeed have 
corrupted either the Access program itself, or the database during the 
last time it was successfully used.  We plan a full reinstall of Access 
(both versions) on the respective computers - and they are going to 
finally get a matching computer for the secretary, so that all the 
computers will be using the same version of operating system and the 
Office Suite.  And, no, of course they didn't keep up with the necessary 
backup, and my copy of the database is two months old, so we will need 
to re-key a bunch of data.

But, the network guy is stumped so far, and so am I.  

Granted, my narrative is incomplete and reveals just how frazzled my 
brain is - still, has anybody else seen anything like this?  Did the 
different versions of Access start a war with each other and chew up 
that database?

Thanks for any suggestions, or even just a sympathetic nod . . .

Tina

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