MDE build error

I have a fairly large (26Mb) frontend developed in Access 97 which I have been distributing through many versions over the past 4 years. Suddenly it is giving an error at the mde build stage which I would only expect as a runtime error - 'Can't open any more tables'.

Curiously, previous versions which did compile OK now don't.

I have reinstalled Windows (W2KPro) on a different partition, together with Access and ODE. Problem unchanged.

The problem travels with these files onto my other development (Win98) systems, with one exception: on one PC all versions but the most recent compile OK.

The error message is always followed by 'Out of memory'.

I have tried importing all the objects into a blank database, but the process gets so far before tipping over with the error 'MSACCESS.exe has generated errors and will be closed by Windows'.

Can anyone please assist......... I'm beginning to feel desperate.

Thanks

Keith

I suspect one of your tables has Errors in it, see which one crashes Access when you try to import them

A 'memo' field in your table might have a corrupt record. As Rich suggested, importing the tables should identify the problem.

HTH

Thanks for both of the above - the suggestions sound sensible, but i can import all the tables - most of which are linked - without error.

I am currently going through the process of importing each set of objects into separate empty databases as a progressive experiment - as yet no real pattern has revealed itself.

Try repairing and compacting the project. Have you gone into the design mode and Compiled and saved all moduels? You may need to try a decompile & recompile as well but try this first.

Try www.mvps.org/access/bugs/bugs0010.htm or do a Google search on 'Can't open any more tables' which should point you to the Microsoft KB.
Hope this helps.

Thanks everyone. And thanks Keith P for the link - I had actually already got to that and was assessing how it might impact on my situation.

Anyway the problem - or the main one anyway - appears to be fixed. I was running Office 97 SR-1 and had clearly run into its limitation of 1024 table references. What had fooled me was that I hadn't expected this to impact at MDE build time. I have upgraded to SR-2b and the 'Can't open any more tables' problem has gone away. I definitely had nested problems, though, and I wonder if a corruption that had occurred within my database had firts led to the tables limit being triggered, given that I must have been very close to the limit. Or did hitting the limit corrupt the database? I'll probably never find out.

One thing that I must share - when trying to extricate myself from the situation prior to installing SR-2b, i was progressively importing all the objects into a fresh database file. In several cases I ended up with 'old' modules - versions of modules which had long been revised, and this from a much-compacted database! Very worrying.

I have also learned to close QueryDefs explicitly.

Thanks to everyone who contributed, and full marks to Keri Hardwick for the most helpful web article on Error 3014.