Calculating... causes Access to hang

[ReidL]

Hi
I have a form (Access 2003) that sometimes hangs when the user enters values into texboxes and then 'tabs' on to the next. "Calculating..." appears in the Status Bar as usual to indicate value is being written to the buffer but then everything just stops. The form connects to a backend database on a server but the effect also happens when front and backends are on the same PC. Most of the linked tables are also in an Access 2003 DB but 4 are DBase IV - exported daily from a legacy application. So far I've tried:

• checking code to trace events - no AfterUpdate on textboxes; form events not being triggered
• rebuilding the form from scratch
• deleting everything (subforms, combos, etc.) except for basic textboxes on a new version
• compacting and repairing after every crash, every rebuild or change
• rebuilding the db from new by importing objects from backups
• Inserting DoCmd.RunCommand acCmdSaveRecord in AfterUpdate subs on some of the textboxes - improves situation but very slow and seems ludicrous anyway

The problem doesn't seem to occur as often immediately after a crash - memory buffer prob?

Any ideas at all? Thanks in advance for any suggestions

ReidL

 

[boblarson]

How many subforms, combos, and listboxes do you have on your form? Do you have any DLookups going on there as well. All of these can contribute to things Access has to "recalculate" depending on your design.

 

[ReidL]

Yeah - that's was my first thought so I stripped out everything except for simple textboxes on a test copy but it still happened

Thanks

ReidL

 

[georgedwilkinson]

My fear is related to your 4th bullet: compacting and repairing after every crash, every rebuild or change

Does your application crash that much? That is highly unusual.

Can you "break" the system while it's calculating (use <ctrl> Break)?

 

[ReidL]

Hi George

Are you thinking that the database is corrupted somewhere? I can't Ctrl-break and every time the pause for 'Calculating...' is lengthy the db crashes, (presumably because of a timeout?) I've only resorted to compacting and repairing because I also had an earlier problem with the form becoming corrupted when I made changes to it - not enough memory message - and I thought it might be related. I've researched the earlier prob. and apparently it does happen occasionally when adding or copying/pasting controls. Because of that I rebuilt the form completely from new but the prob. still re-occurred. I'm beginning to think that I need to rebuild the form again piece by piece. There must be something I'm missing that's going on in the background.

Anyway, thanks for your help

ReidL

 

[georgedwilkinson]

I'd be more worried about your DB IV linked tables. Do you have any way of monitoring what's going on? Can you simplify the problem form into pieces that allow you to see where your processing bottlenecks are? In a development copy, remove the lookup SQL from each combo in turn.

 

[ReidL]

Thanks I'm going to try that

R