Updating previous (wrong) record

[jmrSudbury]

I have a rare problem. Sometimes, when a user edits a field on a form, the current record is not altered. Instead, the previous record is changed. Often, sending them a new version of the front end program fixes the problem, but not always.

The form has a record source that has an outer join. I am now going to change that to an inner join to see if that fixes it, but I am doubtful. Has anyone else come across this problem?

I am using MS Access 2003 and the front end clients are in mde format.

John M Reynolds

 

[RuralGuy]

Do any of the items mentioned by MVP Allen Browne apply?

 

[jmrSudbury]

Thanks for the link Rural. I did not see anything on that site that has to do with my problem. For now, either the inner join, or simply the new copy of the file, fixed the problem. I wonder how long it will take to rear its ugly head again.

 

[RuralGuy]

I am using MS Access 2003 and the front end clients are in mde format.

And *everyone* has their OWN copy of the FrontEnd, right?

 

[jmrSudbury]

Ha ha. Good idea to check that. Yes, everyone has their own home directory that contains their own front ends, and the user was only logged in once to the terminal server.

 

[RuralGuy]

Well John, that pretty much exhausts my bag of guesses. Sorry.

 

[jmrSudbury]

It failed again. The record the user is on is 17114. When I download a copy of their data and pull up the same primary key, it is record 17115. Shadowing the user, I saw again how changing the data actually changes the values for the previous record. The record pointer is off somehow. I was able to correct it by stepping through the records. For example, record 1 edited properly while editing record 10,000 changed the previous record. By halving the numbers, we found that records 5000, 7000, 8000, 9000, 9500, ... 9999 were all editable. Suddenly record 10,000 was editable.

Sigh.

I don't know how the record pointer is getting messed up, or if it is a problem with the index, but I do know that compacting the back end data does not fix the problem. I know another user at a different location had trouble with a form editing the wrong record in another program, but simply giving them a new version of the front end helped that time. This time, even giving the user a new version does not help.

Has anyone else seen this problem?

 

[RuralGuy]

Go to this URL: http://allenbrowne.com/tips.html
and scroll down to Flaws in Access and see if Allen can shed any light on your problem.