Improper Error 3197 - record locked?!

[pavla]

I have a record in my database which reports error:
3197 - two users are attempting to change the same data at the same time.

The problem is that the error persists even though all other users quit from the database: and it is triggered by the only remaining user tabbing into one particular field of the “locked” record. The field itself displays “ERROR”.

How do I get rid of this locking? I have quit and restarted the database. I have run the compression utility but it generates the same error message. How do I clear an improperly locked record?

Thank you, Pavla Graham.

 

[Tim1]

Hi Pavla,

If you look in the directory holding your database, you will find a file with the same name as you access database, with the file extension .ldb. This is the record locking file.

You should be able to find out which user created this file when they were logged in. They will need to log out of the network on their computer, this should delete the file and allow you access to that record.

If the file is still present when they have logged out, you should be able to just delete the .ldb file yourself at that point.

HTH

Tim

 

[pavla]

Thank you very much - I'll give it a try

Pavla

 

[pavla]

Dear Tim

Further to the Access error 3197 - two users are attempting to change the same data at the same time.

As you had suggested, I removed the .ldb file from the directory where the database resides. This, however, did not remedy the situation: as soon as I tabbed into the field with its “Error” contents, the error message 3197 flashed on the screen again. The record itself seemed to be in order: the record indicator was set to “saved” and I could edit the other fields in the same record and save the record again.

In the end, I deleted the field itself (as it happens there was only one record in its table), created a new field with the same name and everything seems in order. I just hope that after this operation there does not lurk an incipient flaw in the database which will affect the working of the application later on.

Regards, Pavla.

 

[keithskinner]

I encountered a similar problem. According to the Microsoft KB, the error may be due to corruption of one or more long data type fields (such as memo). The symptom is the appearance of # in a data field. The remedy is to use the compact utility WHILE THE DATABASE IS CLOSED. Since I have linked tables in a networked database, I had to remove all linked references, make a local copy, compact it and then replace the networked version with the repaired version. I received an allocation error during the compacting process, but it seemed to correctly repair all the data and the database was usable.