After a while my database always gets corrupted... solution?

[Sharky II]

Hi guys

I've installed a database at a clients office (split db, back end on a public server, frotn end on each persons machine). Was working well until today (so, about a week), when i got a phone call from one of the employees there - the database front end wouldn't open on anyones machine.

I told her to navigate to the public drive and open the back end. Upon doign so, a message came up that said there was an error and asked her if she wanted access to repair the DB. She clicked 'ok' and now the front ends do launch.

However this has happened before, and i'm worried that when access 'repaired' the database, some of the links/relationships between tables have been severed. This has happened before - however i am unsure if this was due to some of teh employees messign about with the tables etc - i'm not even sure if the unlinked table problem that happened last time was due to this error - but all i know is i obviously didn't give them tables that were unlinked, and somehow they got like that.

Anyway, anyone ever experienced this before? Does this happen if they do not compact and repair frequently? Does it lead to problems in the database?

Any info would be appreciated.

Thanks

 

[Sharky II]

just got a call back, apparently it seems to be working fine, and everything ok.

however i'm not convinced - why would this suddenly happen? Upon repairing the db she said that access gave her the message that 'a user may have closed access when the database was open'

Oh, there are a max of 6 (front end) users at any one time, usually about 3-4. The db has about 2100 customers and each customer has loads of details, and can go on trips, training courses, the number of tables involved is quite high.

Cheers

 

[The_Doc_Man]

however i'm not convinced - why would this suddenly happen? Upon repairing the db she said that access gave her the message that 'a user may have closed access when the database was open'

As long as you have a network that can take a glitch, this will happen.

As long as you have users who turn off their machines at night without bothering to log out first, this will happen.

As long as you have folks who can get so sidetracked that a firewall, router, or gateway can experience an "inactivity timeout" on their connection, this can happen.

There is no clear solution, either. In a perfect world, NONE of these problems would come to pass. In THIS world, ...

 

[Sharky II]

thanks very much for that mate. i'll send them an email telling them to correctly shut down at night, quitting all applications first. i'll also tell them not to leave their front ends running for long periods if they won't be using it.

i guess the rest is up to god and good will

Cheers mate, really helpful

 

[Kevin_S]

Sharky -

Another point on this - because this is a problem for you as you have already experienced it you may want to set up your own code that will remove a user after a certain period of inactivity - this way you could set this to run before the windows code. When you shut down the app yourself due to inactivity you could properly shut down the app thus ensuring that there is less chance of curruption on the BE...

Just food for thought...

HTH,
Kev