Can't Save Database Properties Message

  • Thread starter Thread starter Jeff Conrad
  • Start date Start date
J

Jeff Conrad

Hi,

Ok, this is quite strange.
Using Access 97 here.

I have a small database and went to File--Database
Properties and then to the Summary Tab. No matter what I
change or do, even if it is only one letter, Access
flashes up the following message when I hit the OK button:

"Microsoft Access is unable to save the database
properties."

There is only an OK button and it has the informational-
type icon on it.

I've never seen this before! I must say it has me
perplexed. Compacting the database has no effect. I have
nothing else running on the computer right now either.

I'm really just curious if anyone else has seen this
and/or why it occurs. Honestly it's not all that important
to change in this particular database. I'm working on a
small subset of a larger program in this container just to
test things. I will eventually import all the stuff I need
back out of it so it's no big deal here.

Just curious, thanks for any info.

Jeff Conrad
Access Junkie
Bend, Oregon
 
Hi Jeff,

Yes, I have experienced the same issue more than once with Access 2000. The only way I was able
to fix it is to create a new database, and then import all objects (tables, queries, forms,
reports, etc.) from the source DB into this new DB. My guess is that something became corrupted.

Tom
_____________________________________


Hi,

Ok, this is quite strange.
Using Access 97 here.

I have a small database and went to File--Database
Properties and then to the Summary Tab. No matter what I
change or do, even if it is only one letter, Access
flashes up the following message when I hit the OK button:

"Microsoft Access is unable to save the database
properties."

There is only an OK button and it has the informational-
type icon on it.

I've never seen this before! I must say it has me
perplexed. Compacting the database has no effect. I have
nothing else running on the computer right now either.

I'm really just curious if anyone else has seen this
and/or why it occurs. Honestly it's not all that important
to change in this particular database. I'm working on a
small subset of a larger program in this container just to
test things. I will eventually import all the stuff I need
back out of it so it's no big deal here.

Just curious, thanks for any info.

Jeff Conrad
Access Junkie
Bend, Oregon
 
Hi Tom,

Thanks for the information. At least I'm not alone in
this. I imported everything into a new container and I am
now able to change the Database Properties in the new copy.

Still weird though.

Thanks,
Jeff Conrad
Access Junkie
Bend, Oregon
-----Original Message-----
Hi Jeff,

Yes, I have experienced the same issue more than once
Click to expand...
with Access 2000. The only way I was able
to fix it is to create a new database, and then import
Click to expand...
all objects (tables, queries, forms,
reports, etc.) from the source DB into this new DB. My
Click to expand...
guess is that something became corrupted.
 
Jeff Conrad said:
Hi Tom,

Thanks for the information. At least I'm not alone in
this. I imported everything into a new container and I am
now able to change the Database Properties in the new copy.

Still weird though.
Click to expand...

Jeff, had you ever worked on this database in any version of Access than
Access 97?
 
Hi Yoda,
Jeff, had you ever worked on this database in any version
of Access other than Access 97?
Click to expand...

Nope, pretty positive about that.

I imported out of a main program a few things relating to
one specific area of the program. I was making changes to
various objects in this "small" database. I will
eventually take all the elements out of these smaller
databases and import them back into a new empty container
when complete and tie everything together. Makes it easier
for me to work on smaller bits at a time.

Just wanted to change the Database Properties temporarily
on this one particular small database. Wouldn't let me
change anything, and yes, the file was not marked as Read
Only. Weird.

Anyway, I've already deleted that troublesome database
after I imported everything into a new container.

Have you ever seen that before?

Jeff Conrad
Access Junkie
Bend, Oregon
 
Hi Dirk,

I first experienced this issue a few years ago, when I was teaching a beginning Access course,
using Access 2000, at Bellevue Community College, in Bellevue, WA. This was before Office XP was
even released.

At the time, I was sending a "take-home" exam as a second quiz, which included a Word document
with the instructions and an Access 2000 database that I had created as a starting point. This
database was not created in an earlier version of Access. I had three students that I highly
suspected as being cheaters (based on previous homework submissions), so I specifically sent each
of them a separate e-mail message, with their e-mail address included in the blind-copy address
bar. Thus, the message each of them received *looked* identical to the message that all other
students received, except that the time sent was different by a few minutes. My plan included
entering their names as the author, using the File > Properties listing, for three separate
copies of this database. However, I found all of a sudden that I was not able to change this
setting on a database that I had created from scratch, using Access 2000. I was able to change
it after importing all objects into a new container.

My suspicions were confirmed when I received the take-home quizzes a week later. The database
properties for each file returned to me, from these three students, revealed one of the three
students' names as the author in each case. Of course, I hadn't covered viewing the properties
in lecture, so most students were completely unaware of this setting.

Tom
________________________________________

Jeff Conrad said:
Hi Tom,

Thanks for the information. At least I'm not alone in
this. I imported everything into a new container and I am
now able to change the Database Properties in the new copy.

Still weird though.
Click to expand...

Jeff, had you ever worked on this database in any version of Access than
Access 97?
 
Jeff Conrad said:
Hi Yoda,


Nope, pretty positive about that.

I imported out of a main program a few things relating to
one specific area of the program. I was making changes to
various objects in this "small" database. I will
eventually take all the elements out of these smaller
databases and import them back into a new empty container
when complete and tie everything together. Makes it easier
for me to work on smaller bits at a time.

Just wanted to change the Database Properties temporarily
on this one particular small database. Wouldn't let me
change anything, and yes, the file was not marked as Read
Only. Weird.

Anyway, I've already deleted that troublesome database
after I imported everything into a new container.

Have you ever seen that before?
Click to expand...

The only time I've seen anything like it was when I was working on a
database in Access 2000, then copied it to my laptop and took it with me
on vacation, where I worked on it using Access 2002, but without
changing the database file format. As I recall it, I had stored some
information in the database properties when I was working in Access
2000, and then I modified the property when I was working under Access
2002. When I returned home and copied the updated version back to work
on it with Access 2000 again, I found that I could no longer access the
database properties, and there was no way to recover them.

It turns out that A2K and A2K2 store the database properties in
different locations in the database file, and if you let A2K2 store the
database properties, you won't be able to read them from A2K -- at
least, that's the way I remember it. I was quite upset about the fact
that one can effectively lose data this way, with no warning that
anything of the sort could happen. When I complained to MS, however,
the answer was "This behavior is by design," which is their way of
saying, "Whether it's a good behavior or a bad behavior, we have no
intention of changing it." I was not happy.
 
Tom Wickerath said:
My plan included entering their
names as the author, using the File > Properties listing, for three
separate copies of this database. [...]

My suspicions were confirmed when I received the take-home quizzes a
week later. The database properties for each file returned to me,
from these three students, revealed one of the three students' names
as the author in each case. Of course, I hadn't covered viewing the
properties in lecture, so most students were completely unaware of
this setting.
Click to expand...

Pretty sneaky, Tom! <g>

I haven't seen the property-update failure you and Jeff are talking
about, though, except in the case I described in my reply to Jeff, where
the database was worked on in both Access 2000 and 2002. I have to
guess there's some sort of file corruption involved.
 
Hi Yoda,
The only time I've seen anything like it was when I was
working on a database in Access 2000, then copied it to
my laptop and took it with me on vacation, where I worked
on it using Access 2002, but without changing the
database file format. As I recall it, I had stored some
information in the database properties when I was working
in Access 2000, and then I modified the property when I
was working under Access 2002. When I returned home and
copied the updated version back to work on it with Access
2000 again, I found that I could no longer access the
database properties, and there was no way to recover them.

It turns out that A2K and A2K2 store the database
properties in different locations in the database file,
and if you let A2K2 store the database properties, you
won't be able to read them from A2K -- at least, that's
the way I remember it. I was quite upset about the fact
that one can effectively lose data this way, with no
warning that anything of the sort could happen. When I
complained to MS, however, the answer was "This behavior
is by design," which is their way of saying, "Whether
it's a good behavior or a bad behavior, we have no
intention of changing it." I was not happy.
Click to expand...

Humm...interesting. Not exactly good news, but still
interesting.

Thanks for the info.

Jeff Conrad
Access Junkie
Bend, Oregon
 
No, no, Dirk... a "vacation" is when you *don't* do
database work... ;)

Fred
Click to expand...

I'll give you one guess as to when I created the Access
Game program Fred!
;-)

(Got to have my fix!)

Just updated it this weekend too.

Jeff Conrad
Access Junkie
Bend, Oregon
 
Fred Boer said:
No, no, Dirk... a "vacation" is when you *don't* do database work...
Click to expand...

Well, when you spend too much of your "work" time in the newsgroups ...
 
Well, when you spend too much of your "work" time in the newsgroups ...

And we ALL appreciate it IMMENSELY!!!!
:-)

Jeff Conrad
Access Junkie
Bend, Oregon
 
Tom Wickerath said:
My suspicions were confirmed when I received the take-home quizzes a week later. The database
properties for each file returned to me, from these three students, revealed one of the three
students' names as the author in each case. Of course, I hadn't covered viewing the properties
in lecture, so most students were completely unaware of this setting.
Click to expand...

Very nice.

This is a pretty obscure feature so even if someone had taken this
feature in a course they likely would've completely forgotten about
it.

I once did something slightly similar by putting some code in a module
but it was way off the end of the screen. The only way of finding it
would've been to rename the calling module name and looking for any
compile errors.

Tony
--
Tony Toews, Microsoft Access MVP
Please respond only in the newsgroups so that others can
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Microsoft Access Links, Hints, Tips & Accounting Systems at
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