Combo Box Problems Data is changing on its own

[skin76]

Hello
I have created a database it's on a Cisco server and ever since it has been put on this server their has been nothing but problems.

The problem is the city field which is a combo box to recall previous inputted cities.

If the city at the time is not in the combo box list the user is prompted to enter new city, they then will add new city click the Add New Button close out of this form and then select newly entered city from the list. Well they get through that part fine, they are saying that once they put in a new city all of the entries they have made previously that day now has this new city name, and sometimes when they do an entry and put in the city field for instance Kansas City they would go back the next day to look at this customer and the city would be something totally different.

Now what I did at my office I loaded the database on my server--just a basic server no bells to it and I put a short cut to the DB on five workstations. I went and entered info including city and state basiclly all of the info that would complete a custome record on each workstation also I would enter half info in a customer close out of that record go to another workstation and finish inputting and I did this on each workstation.

I rebooted all the systems, matter of fact we had a bad thunder storm and the power was knock out for an hour. Once the power came back on I booted all systems pulled up the database and all 15 new test I did was as I entered them with city and info in tact. This was 3 days ago I went back in today everything is as I inputted it. So I dont understand why they are having this problem. I work on this software all the time updating and making changes and I never have promblem like this. When I go to their office I stick around for an hour to make sure everything is fine, once I leave and get half way home they are call me with problems and I just dont understand.

Could this be a network issue. This company is very secretive when comes to their network and it's like pulling teeth to get any info let alone trying to talk to someone to get help with the networking of this software.

Please advice (I'm pulling at my hair)!!!

 

[willir]

skin76

Well I do not think you have corruption. Corruption results in really corrupt data, not city names changing.

Are you sure the city form is bound to the table.

Test...
Change the city for a specific record.
Run a report, query or look at the data on the table -- did it change? If not, then your data is not bound correctly and what you may be seeing is the data from previous entries.

A user is changing the data by accident instead of entering or running a query. I had this problem. Instead of searching for "Smith", the end user would change "Arsenault" to "Smith" in the contact database. (Yea, we changed the front end after this one)

You can add a date field to a record. Hide it and set it to change to =Now() when the record is inserted or updated. This way, you can track at what time the change was made (which may help with the "by whom"). Or look at creating a proper audit trail.

 

[skin76]

I ran the query report and the city names are as I put them in form my server.

I have never seen data just change like this, they were running fine for a week then all of sudden problems. I have check the city and how it's setup, the state field is setup the same way no problems. Now they e-mailed me yesterday saying that the new person that they have hired is locked out of the software and this has never happened before in the three months they have been working in it

And does it explain that it works great on my server I did not have any of these problems while I was doing my testing, but they are thats why Im asking could it be network related?

 

[KenReay]

Hi

So does that mean they have changed or they have not changed

The only way you are going to work your way out of this is to keep your cool and stay logical,



Regards

Ken Reay
Freelance Solutions Developer
Boldon Information Systems Ltd
Website needs upgrading, but for now -

http://www.kenneth.reay.btinternet.co.uk

UK

 

[skin76]

No the data didnt change it was for whatever I had entered through the form thats how it appeared on my query.

 

[KenReay]

Hi

So does that mean that you cannot reproduce the users reported problem?

Regards

Ken Reay
Freelance Solutions Developer
Boldon Information Systems Ltd
Website needs upgrading, but for now -

http://www.kenneth.reay.btinternet.co.uk

UK

 

[skin76]

Needless to say I talked to one of their IT people and he looked at the network and come to find out that only one person had full accessability to the database the other people could only read and thats why the data was not sticking. Today is the first day that the staff will have writing ability to the software so we will see how today will go

Thanks for all of yor help

 

[skin76]

Well I thought I was out of the woods, I just rec an email now they are saying that one person is still losing their city info. The other for workstations is retaining all of their info, but now its one person who continue to lose the city she inputs or it completely changes to a different city. I understand it happening to a group of people but just one person

Please advice

 

[KenReay]

Hi

So most users are fixed, but one continues to have the problem

Changing the access rights fixed those who are now working

how about double checking the access rights of the user who is still not working?



Regards

Ken Reay
Freelance Solutions Developer
Boldon Information Systems Ltd
Website needs upgrading, but for now -

http://www.kenneth.reay.btinternet.co.uk

UK

 

[skin76]

Still having promblems.

Locking users out was not an issue until the IT Tech changed everyone rights to full access--Now one machine is locking everyone out.

The IT Tech gave everyone full access to the database instead of limited access. Everything was fine for about two days, then they e-mails me saying that they are getting locked out of the database. I asked them what is the error message.

The error message is "Admin on Machine 14". So Machine 14 is locking everyone out once she is in. I checked to make sure this computer was not opening up in Exclusive mode and it is SHARED.

Once the staff rights were changed to full access-- Istead of the whole staff only two people now is still losing their City info once they entered it.

First Question--From access level the software is shared in a shared folder on the network.Could the IT setup of machine 14 incorrectly?

Second Question--could the info not be sticking because once Machine 14 is in the software which is locking everyone out that it's causing like a chain reaction and causing those two machinces info not to save properly?

Please Advise

 

[MakeItSo]

Sounds to me as if it boils down to two possibilities, both permission issues:
Either incorrect permission settings on the shared folder (inherited permission?), or incorrect permission settings in the database.
Do you use a frontend/backend structure?
Have you set up a workgroup file, so your users log in?

Perhaps the affected users doi not have the right to write data to the table?
Check your database security options.

Hope that helps,
Andy

[blue]The last voice we will hear before the world explodes will be that of an expert saying:
"This is technically impossible!" - Sir Peter Ustinov[/blue]
andreas.galambos@bowneglobal.de
HP:

http://andygalambos.de

 

[skin76]

I will be go out to split the database on Monday

I didnt set up workgroups because they have to use--users passwords to login onto the network

 

[KenReay]

Hi

I would agree with MakeItSo , definately sounds like a permissions problem, one of the users does not have create permissions in the folder

Regards

Ken Reay
Freelance Solutions Developer
Boldon Information Systems Ltd
Website needs upgrading, but for now -

http://www.kenneth.reay.btinternet.co.uk

UK

 

[willir]

skin76

You may want to read up on networking Access databases. I think you may also have a network setup issue....

You have to ensure...
- Default open mode set to "Shared"
- Default record locking set to "Edited record"
- Open database using record-level lcoking is enabled
These settings are from the main menu, "Tools" -> "Options" -> "Advanced Tab"

Shared - Multiple end users can open the database. If it is set to "Exclusive" then only one person can open the database for editing. Note: You need to open up a database in exclusive mode if making changes to the schema.

Edit record - Only locks a record being edited. If locking set to "All records", then only one end-user can edit data in a table(s) at one time. If no locks are set, the chance of corruption or data integrity issues occurring can be high with a high transaction table.

Record-level locking - Locks a record at the record level. Some like a common sense thing but the default is "page level" - a page of data the server loads into memory - which makes a lot more sense the perspective of the server.

HINT: While you are looking at Options, take a "gander" at the "General" tab and make sure "Name Auto Correct" is NOT enabled. This is an okay option when doing development work, but can cause serious performance problems for end-users.

LASTLY, these changes need to be done on all desktops running Access, and the backend.

Oh yea, one has to wonder why things got messed up so badly - permissions, prehaps setup issues too. Having permissions messed up on what seemed to be a stable system seems a little wierd, and a cause for concern. Are these new users (to the database)? Did IT upgrade the server, migrate it to a new location or restore the database? Was somebody trying to lock down the system? You may want to add some documentation to prevent this thing from happening again -- I am sure you could have done without the aggrivation.

Richard