Question I want to save keystrokes leading to error

[bcmarshall]

To all you brainiacs out there this may not be a difficult thing to resolve, but it's got me pulling out what little hair I have left.

Starting at the beginning, I have an Access 2007 DB front end running on SQL Server 2016 back end with about 20 users. Some have Win7 and others Win10 on their work stations.

There are instances where a user is working away and then gets an error. A lot of times it's a "The data has been changed..." error, but it could be anything. I'd like to retrace the steps that were involved in the user getting that error by saving the previous 100 (or 10 or 200 or whatever works best) keystrokes to a table so that I can literally reproduce exactly what the user did. I don't want to automate this. Just a simple button on a form that the user can click after an error occurs that says "Submit Error" would save those previous keystrokes to a table for later review.

I know that both Win7 and Win10 have keystroke recorders built in, and also there are dozens of third party apps. Can anyone figure a way to code that button so that it would save the information I want so that I can try to figure the cause of any/all of them? It can't be everything they did all day because I'd never be able to figure out where the issue was. Just a set number of keystrokes before the Submit button is clicked is what I need.

As always, I truly appreciate the help you all offer.

 

[theDBguy]

Hi. Just curious... What about the mouse clicks they did? You don't suppose any errors could be caused by where/what they were clicking?

 

[Mark_]

In many ways you would be better served by automatically logging all errors. Your log would indicate what error was caused by whom, when, including what the error was and (if applicable) which record is affected.

Just retracing their steps when they say "I got an error" won't tell you what the actual error was nor will it duplicate errors when two users are changing the same record at the same time.

Depending on your network topology, this may need to be a front end table. You'd need code to check periodically if it has copied to your back end (and a "Copied" flag).

As theDBguy has noted, just following the keys won't get you all the information you need.

 

[isladogs]

Agree with previous comments.
I have a detailed error logger that can also send an automated email to me when an error occurs giving details of who, what, where, when, why etc.

Its currently embedded into one of my main commercial apps but its on my list of jobs to release it as a standalone application in the next few months.

In the meantime, the Smiley Coder already has something very similar available free from https://thesmileycoder.com/crash-reporter/. Its highly recommended

 

[bcmarshall]

thank you isladogs. That is a really awesome tool and it may be the answer to my prayers. I'm gonna download and install it and see how it goes. I'll let you know in a week or so whether it has solved my problem.


Thanks again.

 

[bcmarshall]

Mark and dbguy, thank you both for your input. Right now I'm just gonna focus on the solution isladogs offered and install the tool. I'm hopeful that's all I'll need.


Regardless I really appreciate the input.

 

[isladogs]

Glad to have helped but remember that I'm just the messenger.
If it does what you need, you should thank the Smiley Coder (Anders Ebro)

 

[The_Doc_Man]

Also, you didn't mention this and I'm not inviting trouble to come your way, but be aware that having some keyloggers would be considered as violations of a corporate security policy. This is a case where it is NOT better to ask forgiveness than permission.

Just sayin'