Access Reports Records Locked By Users When There Are No Locks

[drosenkranz]

I'm using VB 5.0 (Service Pack 3) and Access 97 DAO. The workstations are
running Win 95. I have as many as thirty five users on the system at peak-
most are browsers. Users occasionally come up with my error message which
will read "Record is currently locked by user JSmith" when attempting to save
their changes.

The problem is that the offending user, JSmith in this example, did not actually
have a lock on their records. In fact, sometimes the offending user is no
longer even on the system any longer when Access reports back their name as
still locking a record. Sometimes, the users are in separate (unrelated) tables
when this occurs too.

Actually, records are only locked for an instant when the user presses the
<Update> button. It almost appears that the Access table is &quot;lagging behind&quot;
the real time events- but I mean really behind. What causes this
behavior? Access? Network traffic?

Is there a command or setting that I could include (in a button) on the form
that will allow the user who is locked out to isuue a &quot;catch-up&quot; command to
the database?

Any ideas out there? [sig][/sig]

 

[kadam]

I'm getting the same problem but have yet to find an answer. I've got an Access 97 database on a network drive and is accessed by usually two users. One of the two often gets &quot;Out of Memory&quot; and then a message that the database is locked by the other user.

The same problem exists on another database at my company.

Very frustrating. I've asked everyone in IT, and have posted to another board. I'll keep you posted if I hear anything.

kadam.

 

[THoey]

When no one is in the database, look in the directory that the MDB is stored and see if there is a file with the same name, but a &quot;.LDB&quot; extension. This is a lock file that usually goes away when someone gets out of the database. Sometimes, if someone exits abnormally, that file remains and will still show the database as locked.

If this is the case, you can delete that file and it should clear up your problem. Again, I stress, make sure no one is in the database when you look for that file and delete it. If someone is in it and you delete it, you run the risk of corrupting the database.

Hope that helps...


Terry M. Hoey
th3856@txmail.sbc.com

Ever notice that by the time that you realize that you ran a truncate script on the wrong instance, it is too late to stop it?

 

[edge2000]

Also consider that Access 97 only does page locking which means that although the user may be only accesing other data within that table they may still be locking the rows of data required by another user.

Also if you have multi table queries for reports that are not set to No Locks they may cause a problem for other users.

Dave
dab@completebs.com

http://www.completebs.com

See website for more info but we can develop most things for most people.

 

[kadam]

I've checked all of my queries, and all are set to 'no locks'. The .ldb file seems to be working as it should and deletes itself after users exit.

The other thing that I've heard about is the system.mdw file. My users are using their own system.mdw file and are not connected to a workgroup. I've been told that if I use the Workgroup Administrator to create a new .mdw file on the network, and then join my users to it, the problem will go away.

Unfortunately, I've seen little documentation about this, and am a little hesitant. Does this sound like the right route?

Thanks,

Kadam.