#error in memo field

[chinitzj]

I have a table that includes a memo field called "project background". I have had a recurring problem that I was hoping someone out there was familiar with. This has been an infrequent occurence so its been hard for me to determine the exact cause. Here is the situation:

1) a record in the table currently has some text entered in the "project background" field.
2) A user goes into that record and adds more text to the project background by going to the last character currently in the field and beginning to type. Sometimes a user is copying and pasting TEXT from email or word docs.
3) Everything appears to be OK with the appended entry. The user exits the field and record OK and no error messages appear.
4) It is later discovered that the "project background" field for that record is gone and the field now reads "#Error". If you try to enter the "project background" field for that record you get the following message: "Unrecognized database format c:\...".

The only way to fix the record is to copy and paste a new one into the table but you still lose all info that was in the "project background" field before the error occurred.

I believe this error is only happening when users are cutting and pasting text into the field but I am not certain. Also, I have tested cutting and pasting myself with all different types of formatted text and I have been unable to duplicate the situation. I am also not sure if the error is instant or not (ie if it appears as soon as the user closes the records after editting the "project background" or if it takes some time to result in the error. In fact, it may even be completely unrelated to the edit that just occurred. I just don't know. Anyone have any experience with this one?

 

[GingerR]

Sounds like a conflict.

Do you have record locks set? Could it be that more than one person is adding/editing data in the same record at the same time? You should have recordlock set to 'edited record' on the form.

Another thought - don't know if you have this situation or not - I had this happen once: while some users were entering/editing data in various records in a 'temp' table, one of us would be done entering a bunch of data and push a button which would send our updates to a master table. During this same process, the db programmatically edited a field in the 'temp' table (to ADDED = True or something like that)in every single record in the table others were currently typing in to. two different updates conflicting. we kept getting that #error thing, but it wasnt my db so i couldn't dig into it. once i owned it, i figured it out.

hope this helps--g

 

[chinitzj]

GingerR -
Thanks for the reply. I am certain that your second explanation is not my problem becuse I don't have this situation.

The first explanation may not be far off though. I am certain that I don't have multiple people editing a record at the same time because each record has one person responsible for it. I may however have two people editing records that are on the same 2k page which I would imagine would have the same effect. The form is currently set to "no locks". Should I change this property to something else? I do have my form set to "no locks" since we don't have multiple people changing one record.

Another problem that I have with my users is that some people will open the database and be in the middle of an edit when they walk away from their computer. Sometimes people are leaving a record open in edit mode for hours or, in the worst case, over the weekend. I have asked people to close the database when they won't be using it for some time, but it has been to no avail. Could this be causing the problem I have described?

Jen