Losing Data

  • Thread starter Thread starter thebob
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thebob

An Access2000 application I wrote is losing data. It is
running under Win2000. Does anyone know of such issues
with this combination? With 20-some major apps under my
belt, I have never had this experience.

The setup is the data backend residing on a server with
the frontend being used on two workstations.

I cannot discern any pattern to the missing records, and
am confident it is not user error. The instances are not
that frequent, but one is too many.
 
Several things you might want to check.

1. Form close bug.
This is a long-standing data-loss bug in Access. If you issue the Close
action/method at a time when the form is dirty with a record that cannot be
saved (e.g. required field missing), Access *silently* discards the record.
You have no idea the record was not saved until you discover it is not there
later.

2. Foreign key not required.
Even with referential integrity enforced, Access does not require a foreign
key to be present. For example, if the user enters data into a subform when
the main form is at a new record, the foreign key will be Null. The records
are still in the table, but they never match anything in the main form, so
the user believes they are gone.

3. Corrupted index.
Try repairing a *copy* of the database. If an index is corrupted, this may
bring them back.

4. Query retrieval error
If the data is still in the table but is not being retrieved when the user
expects, this could be due to:
a) INNER JOIN omitting records that have no match in the related table;
b) Null records not returned when field has critiera;
c) Service packs not applied (particularly bad with original Access 2000).

5. Win2000 server running with Opportunistic locks
This can cause problems with the data. Applying Win2k SP3 should disable
opportunistic locking.
 
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