Font End Closing/"Crashing" (1 Viewer)

[BlingGirl]

I have a split DB with the front end working fine on two computers but not on a third.

Split DB, backend saved on a mapped network drive.
Each computer has its own copy of the font end.
Windows 11 - Fully Updated
Office 365 - Fully Updated

Wednesday everything worked fine.
Yesterday one computer would close the DB and close Acess every time we would try to add or change any data. The other two computers were still working fine. I thought perhaps the front end on the one computer became corrupt.

I made some changes to the front end so I saved a new accde file and saved a copy of it to each of the computers.
The same thing, works great on two of the computers but not on the third.

When Access closes there is still an laccdb file open. I have to reopen the Front End and properly close out of it to close the locked back end.

I ran Office repair and it uninstalled and reinstalled it.

One thing to note, not sure if this makes a difference, but the mapped network drive is on the computer where Access keeps closing.

Any help would be very much appreciated.

Thanks!

 

[Gasman]

So does that computer have it's folder as the mapped drive as well?
Use the UNC path instead?

 

[The_Doc_Man]

It would be interesting to know how it happened since you say it worked OK previously. Something had to have changed or moved, though. At first glance, this sounds like the person using that third computer has somehow developed a permissions problem on the folder in which you had problems with the .LACCDB file.

Assuming your computer works, all you need to do is compare permissions on your system and on the failing system. It SHOULD be enough to right-click on the .LACCDB file from both computers. Then on the drop-down menu, Properties >> Security >> Advanced security.

First, you should have the generic (i.e. coarse-grained) Modify permission on the BE file, the .LACCDB file, and the directory/folder in which those files reside. But second, in the Advanced control box, you should be able to find Effective Security for those files. To use this, you must choose a file AND a user. You would, if you looked carefully, see permissions such as PassThru and WriteAttributes. There are 22 possible detailed permissions, and maybe about a dozen are implied by the setting for Modify as a broad-brush permission level. Everybody using the same application will need the same permissions.

There is also the possibility that your network-level permissions are set correctly but you aren't using them for the BE's host. See, that copy of the FE that is on the BE's host doesn't use network permissions, so is different. The other FE files are on machines that see the BE as a network file. Windows makes a distinction between local and network permissions. If there was a way to declare a group identifier, you could create an Access Control Entry (ACE) to grant Modify to the folder and all files in it. Then assign all your users to have the given group identifier. Ideally, that would make managing the DB a lot easier since all you would need to add a new user, permission-wise, would be to add them to the group. Of course if you have user login in the DB, that would still need to be properly managed.

If this is a permissions problem, you might need to warn your IT Security folks that you might need a permissions tweak because of the locality issue. They could help with the idea of a group identifier. I used that many times on U.S. Navy projects and I'm sure you understand just how picky a government military organization can be about security. So that approach is generally considered safe.

 

[arnelgp]

One thing to note, not sure if this makes a difference, but the mapped network drive is on the computer where Access keeps closing.

see post #2 if it will resolved.
you try and not use a Mapped drive to this pc.

if the db was not created on the same pc that has problem, re-create same
folder structure as the one where the back-end is located (on the problem pc?).
then put the BE on same Folder structure where you created the db.
Relink the FE and give it to the problem pc.

 

[pbaldy]

Another thing to check is the version/build numbers of Access on the different computers. There have been Windows/Office updates that have caused the type of behavior you're seeing, though I thought they had been patched.

 

[raziel3]

I've had this problem.

Sometimes......checking the "Clear Cache on Close" box on the BE helps resolves this.

Also remember to compact and repair the BE regularly.

 

[BlingGirl]

I apologize it took so long to reply. It's been a long two weeks, plus regular work duties and life.

@Gasman I changed the location to the UNC path and it didn't change anything with the "broken" computer. It did however significantly speed things up for the other two computers. Thank you!

@The_Doc_Man I checked the permission and the culprit wasn't there. I knew figuring out what changed in those 4 days would help me fix it.

@arnelgp and @raziel3 Thank you for your suggestions I will defiantly have those in my arsenal to be able to use next time something like this happens.

I had narrowed it down and felt like it had to be something with Access, Office or Windows. I called in some backup and did a remote session with an IT tech. He confirmed as I had suspected, it was something with the software, either Windows or Access, but had no answers for me.

I came back here to write a post to see if y'all could help me troubleshoot further and saw the post from @pbaldy. As I was gathering the build info from each of the three computers to do more research, I noticed for the first time (the IT tech had missed it too), that the user had signed themself up for the Office Insider program and had the Beta version of Access on their computer. I un-joined the insider program and voilá, success!

I asked the user probably 15 different times if they had made any changes, downloaded, or updated anything but they could not remember doing anything...now they remember signing up for it...

This is the second time the Insider Program has bitten me. Fool me twice, shame on me, it will be the first thing I check from now on.

I really appreciate your help!

 

[pbaldy]

Happy to help! It's sad that among the first things we have to consider now when something breaks is that Microsoft has broken it with one of their updates.