Error message when attempting to open a table (1 Viewer)

[MikeD]

Hi, Today I have attempted to open an Access table that I practically use most days, and as I was going through the motions of opening it, when I right click on the table I received the message "Invalid Argument" when I click on the OK box the next message is, "Microsoft Office can't open the table in Datasheet View." I am therefore at a loss, as this is a message I have never seen before, and I have been using the same table in all its incarnations from Access 2000, 2003 and now 2007 with no problem at all, luckily I back up my working drive each time before I close down my PC, and have the backup on the second hard drive, I have attempted to open that copy and it works fine, but I do wish to try to resolve the issue that I am at present experiencing. I look forward to hearing from anyone who may be able to explain to me what the problem is that is causing this message to appear, regards Mike

 

[CJ_London]

perhaps you are using lookups in your table design or have a calculated field which is prevented from calculating due to some change you have made to the table or it's data

What happens is you write a simple query - select * from mytable?

alternatively you table may have become corrupted

 

[gemma-the-husky]

maybe it's corrupt.

try creating a new table, and doing an append query to add all the items into the new table. if there is a corruption, this will fail.

sometimes you can find the corruption by inspection.

otherwise, try appending just some of the items (eg with a data criteria) - eventually you will pin down the corrupt record.

 

[MikeD]

Hi Both, Thank you for taking the trouble to respond to my plea for help, and the offered suggestions on how to remedy my problem. Strangely enough having closed down my PC yesterday evening after posting my enquiry to the forum, and then not switched on for almost 24 hours, I have just in the past ten minutes attempted to open the Access Database and, surprisingly no error messages at all, and everything is intact and working in the required datasheet view........I have absolutely no idea as to what caused my previous issue, but it has taught me that the backing up every day after completing my work is certainly not time wasted, and this has certainly served as a warning to me. It is in fact the first time I have ever had a problem with Access after many years of good service, and took me somewhat by surprise, thankfully all seems well, again thank you both, Mike