Fellow database gurus, I need your help. I have a new job and a new, good boss. I also have a newly-built Access 2003 database which tracks some internal matters. It runs fine on my computer, however, when my boss runs it, Access tells him he has a “dll error”. The line it happens on has this:
The SQL statement itself is fine – as I said, this bit of code runs fine on at least two other machines. I’ve checked all the references and they are pointing to the correct places and the files are in place. I couldn’t find anything on Microsoft’s tech support which looked helpful, although that doesn’t mean it wasn’t there. I haven’t found anything by Googling yet, either.
I have a vague idea that this may be a misleading error message and that the underlying problem may be something else, but I can’t think what that is. I’m sure it’s something specific to his computer, but again, I don’t know what it’s worth. For what it’s worth, this particular file is a front end which means it contains many linked tables. I’ll double check all the links after I post this, but I wonder if that could be a factor. I’d welcome any suggestions about what could be causing this.
I told my boss there’s a message board I waste far too much time at which is usually good for technical solutions. You’ve done well by me every other time I’ve asked, and I do appreciate your help.
Does the back end database reside on a server? Optimistic locking of tables on network shares is sometimes affected by settings in the network client - I had a problem like this with a back end database on a Novell server - it wouldn’t work properly on one client machine because of some arcane setting buried in the Client32 configuration.
Also… any chance of a bit more detail than ‘dll error’? - or is that all the dialog said when it popped up?
“dll error” is all the dialog said. The backend databases (there are 2 actually) do live on a server, so that could be a factor. Good to see you again, by the way. That pdf toolkit was a godsend!
Hey! Good to see you too (I posted the previous reply without noticing it was your thread) - where have you been?
Funny thing with the error I had is that I had been under the impression that, as far as my Novell server was concerned, the back end database was just a file and that any record locking would be handled by Access itself (in the ldb file created and maintained by the front end processes accessing the back end database) - after the server dished up the file, but this wasn’t the case - the ‘max record locks’ setting in the Novell client was interfering.
A quick and dirty way to test if this is a factor here might be to grab a copy of the back end database down onto the misbehaving client PC, then run the front end against that and see if it still falls over. If there are a lot of links, it should be possible to disconnect the network drive temporarily and map a local folder as the same drive letter to fool access into finding the back end where it expects to.
Well, I copied the table which was producing the error to the file itself, and got the same error. The same error turned up in a different application which references different tables, so I had him call our corporate help desk (I’m now working for a mega-corp). They had him reinstall Office. That didn’t solve the problem, so they had him reboot. I haven’t heard anything since, but I’ll keep you posted.
If it’s happening in multiple databases, I think we can rule out any glitches or errors in the database files themselves.
So it has to be something about the PC - some aspect of the Windows configuration, some aspect of the way Access is installed - something like that.
Could it be something weird like regional settings on the machine making it parse a date field to nonsense?
If you haven’t already done so, I’d suggest posting the problem at Access World Forums - I haven’t been there for a while - but they used to be pretty good.