Property not found, error occurred while trying to import file

[eire1979]

Hello,

I'm trying to import a tab delimited text file into Access and I get this error Property not found.
An error occurred trying to import file [blah]. The file was not imported.

I don't know what I'm doing wrong! I imported this exact file yesterday without a problem. I was importing it again to overwrite the first one because I wanted to change some of the Long Integer fields to Text. I thought that might be causing the problem, so I tried to just import the file again from scratch, not changing anything (leaving the Long Integer fields as they are), but I still get this error.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks

 

[Andrew Fergus]

Hi

This is a long shot by try compacting and repairing the database and trying the import again. Have you also tried importing into a new table? Does the error message give any error numbers at all?

Andrew

 

[eire1979]

Thanks for your reply!

I did try compacting and repairing and re-importing. I think the problem was just insufficient memory! The file was getting to about 2GB. My manager is getting me more memory!

 

[Joe4]

I think the problem was just insufficient memory! The file was getting to about 2GB. My manager is getting me more memory!

Therein lies the problem! Access has a size limit of 2 GB. So getting extra memory on your computer won't make a difference, it is an Access size issue.

Compacting & Repairing regularly (like Andrew recommended) will help you get rid of extra unused space, and keep your database size optimized. If, even with that, you are pushing the 2 GB limit, you might want to look at archiving some data or splitting your database (or using something else as a back-end to hold your data, like SQL or Oracle).

 

[eire1979]

Good to know! I think this project will be better in some other database system, which I have yet to learn. Thanks for all y'all's help!

 

[Gates Is Antichrist]

Regarding this error message, strictly when importing a comma delimited file:

This ineptly and deceptively worded error message may also mean that the count of fields does not precisely match the number in the input file, in the case of importing .CSV. Namely, when there are less fields in the receiving .MDB than .CSV fields, wham. This might happen when the supplier of the .CSV makes an change by adding a comma and a new field. Unannounced, of course

You'd think the Access developer team would have enough self pride to address this useless error message and similar lame aspects; you'd think they even read this forum and be aware of fixes like this that are extremely simple to correct on their end. But clearly the team priority is chasing tail and doing shots and bongs.

When you get "Property not found," open up the receiving table's design and grind through checking the fields, one by one, against the text file.

jm14 is correct in your case; 2 gig is the limit, both before and after compacting. (Access 97 has a 1 gig limit; 2000 through 2007 have 2.)
You need to be (at least a hair, and generally more) UNDER 2 gig in total size. (And keep in mind that 2 gig of text source takes more than 2 gig as stored in Access.).

 

[dhookom]

One of the issues I have found is if the first row contains characters that are not allowed as field names. I've been tripped up a number of times when a cell value begins with a space. These are difficult to troubleshoot particularly because the error message isn't very helpful.

 

[pfinley]

When the data you're importing is less that 2 GB but enough to put your db over the limit, try putting it in a db of its own and linking to it. I worked around the size limit "property not found" error doing this.