Access rolls back changes seemily Randomly???

[bodington]

I'm pulling my hair out with a bizarre problem. Any insight would be very appreciated!

We are running Access 2003 on an XP machine - in a network environment. When the developer is working on the local machine, unplugged from the network, everything works fine. When he logs into the network some changes are not saved, and some changes are rolled back.

For example, this morning, he forgot to unplug from the network. He made a change to the data entry form for a table, saved and closed the file. When he re-opened all the date fields in that table were converted to text. Those date fields had originally been text, but were converted to dates a couple of weeks ago. Since then, the application has been in use and working fine. Today, after connecting to the network, they are text again.

We've seen these anormalities occur with field properties within a table, query criteria, and form field properties. We haven't been able to identify a pattern and I have not been able to recreate the problem with another user.

We have switched the laptop, re-imaged the hard drive, re-created his profile on the network, uninstalled and re-installed Access, recreated the database that we're seeing these occurences in thinking it could be corruption.

I'm out of ideas. I'm hoping someone brilliant out here can at least give me some suggestions that I can investigate.

Thank you so much!
Mary

 

[kjv1611]

How is the database being opened in each instance? Via shortcut(s) or direct? I mean both the instance of the editor/developer and the users. The reason I ask is that it'd be very easy to be updating one copy, not overwriting the other copy, and then going back and opening the yet to be edited copy as a user.

 

[bodington]

Well, we develop in a seperate copy with local tables and a strong password.

Then, before deployment, we copy to a new location and change the name. Delete the static tables and link to our sql server tables. Change the password and copy to a network folder.

We have a logon script that is user specific and it copies down the databases from that network folder to the local machine that the user has permissions to. So each user has their own front end.

I've not seen any weird things happening on the users machines, or my machine and I develop in Access as well. Only with one developer.

 

[lameid]

Some shots in the dark, maybe one will hit something...

Is there a roaming profile at work?

Does he have some sort of synchronization set up?

Is he using a script to update the network copy that does not use the same source as his development file?

If another developer watches him do it, do they notice anything weird and it still occur?

Are you using something other than a Windows network like Novell? (Novell is where I am at and it has a fun caching feature).

Did he aggravate the network admin (Sam) a little too much? Is the developer named Fred and eats the sack lunch labeled

Sam's food do not eat, this means you Fred?

 

[bodington]

Thanks lameid

I'll check into the Fred and Sam scenerio. It's unlikely between these two but come to think of it, Sam has lost some weight recently


My network admin is out today, so I'll have to talk to her tomorrow about the roaming profile. We are in a windows network environment. I know he hasn't set up any synchronization himself and updates teh network copy by hand and not script. I've not been able to see or reproduce the occurences. It doesn't happen all the time, and we haven't been able to pin down a pattern.

Thanks so much for your ideas!