Unable to Open Database on more than one machine at a time (1 Viewer)

[Stressley]

For over two years now my department has been running an Access application in multi-user format but now when more than one user tries to open the application I get an error message like "Database open by Admin on Machine #" . What is causing this problem all of the sudden?

 

[Pat Hartman]

Did someone change the network permissions?

 

[Stressley]

As far as I know, no one has changed the network permissions on any of the folders. I was thinking of changing the application to run on each local machine and have the back-end data reside on the server. I wonder if it is an inherent protection within Access that prohibits the opening on several machines at the same time?

 

[Pat Hartman]

Is someone opening the db in exclusive mode?

 

[Stressley]

I searced the archives and found another post that sort of speaks to my problem but there was no conclusion reached as to the actual cause of the problem. The actual message I get when more than one of my users attempt to open the database is this The database has been placed in a state by user 'Admin' on
machine 'Darren' that prevents it from being opened or locked". The message only began a short time ago and I can't really recall any changes that I made immediately prior to the message appearing. I have only 5 users on the database, which is written in Access 2000. and is not password protected in any way. I would appreciate any suggestions for troubleshooting this problem.

 

[Autoeng]

Is one of your machines "Darren"? If so that is where your problem is coming from. Under Tools - Options - Advanced make sure that machine is not set to Default open mode "Exclusive".
Does the user that uses this machine like to "experiment"? You can look at the contents of the *.ldb file to see what user is locking the db using Notepad. Is the user only turning off their machine and not shutting down the db? Are they exiting the db and then quickly (1-2 seconds later) trying to reenter the db? That will sometimes lock it up. Is it a condition that it doesn't matter which user is in they lock all others out or is it this "Darren" machine only?

Detail the problem as much as you can and I'll try to help you out.

Autoeng

 

[sha7jpm]

tis a strange one....

my department has a dbase which occasionally throws up this error, by rebooting Access or the machine, it solves the problem, and does not resurface... well not on the same machine anyway.

I have no idea why it occurs, but I have found no affect on the data it has stored or any detrimental affect to the dbase.

the users who have experienced this, are certainly not people who would experiment, which has led my investigations to our overall company network and maybe a glitch of some kind within that.

it certainly is strange though..

 

[SammyL]

I often have a similar problem with a shared Access 97 mdb running over a Novell 5 network. It is my understanding, from having researched this problem in the past, that this is often associated with some form of network failure or pc connectivity problem. It sometimes can be corrected as sha7jpm has indicated by exiting out and restarting the offending machine (the idea is to release all resources and connections and then renew them by restarting and re-entering the database). I have also found that the database can often become corrupted on this offending machine and will need to be compacted using the Jet Compact Utility from Microsoft (be certain to use the utility that matches the Microsoft Jet database engine that your database uses). If this occurs during the normal working hours, then of course, all users who might still be connected will need to exit from the database prior to compacting.