Replica set lost key field!!

[davea300]

Using access 2003 my replica set tables in both the master and replicas seems to have lost the key field! The data and field itself are simply missing from every table. When I look at the data in the tables the key field called 'UID' is not visible but I can still see it in the relationships view and in certain forms and queries. If I try to re join any of the two tables the UID field comes up as an option to join the two with but it's still not visible in any of the tables.

Any ideas as to what has happened?

 

[davea300]

I suspect this is what has happened, now to figure out how to re instate the primary key! Any ideas?

The most likely problem is a corruption.

When you perform a compact/repair, Access rebuilds the indexes. If it
discovers that there is a duplicate in a unique index, the repair could
solve the problem by discarding data, or by discarding the index. Naturally,
Microsoft chose to discard the index rather than to discard the data.

If another table has a foreign key field that relates back to this field
with referential integrity turned on, the loss of the index also results in
the loss of the relationship. This sounds like what you are seeing.

When JET makes these changes, it creates a new table with "Compact errors"
in its name. You can examine the creation date of this table to discover
when compact/repair discarded the index and relation(s.)

In terms of prevention, it's the standard stuff you do to prevent
corruption. Here's a list of things I've found useful:
http://allenbrowne.com/ser-47.html

This problem is not common if the machines, network, power and users are
all working reliably. If it is recurring, it would suggest that something is
causing interrupted writes, and your goal will be to identify what that is.