Help Please - Database stopped working

[brumby]

Hiya,

I really could do with some help. I am a complete novice on Access, so please excuse me.

My Wife's business has had 3 new computers installed as the old ones were just about to pack up. There is a customer & stock database held on the main computer set up as a server, this computer is housed out of the way, for the last 2 months the databases have worked fine.

There are another 2 computers which access the database from the server, this is in the main showroom where updates are made and records added.

Yesterday, the 2 computers would not open up the database's and the following error messages came up.

The Microsoft Office Access database engine cannot open or write to the file '\\Ian\backup\SCOTSTOC\scootback.mdb'. It is already opened exclusively by another user, or you need permission to view and write its data

The Microsoft Office Access database engine cannot open or write to the file '\\Ian\backup\CUSTDATA\custdatamdb'. It is already opened exclusively by another user, or you need permission to view and write its data

We don't think anything has changed, does anyone have any idea's whats happened??

Many Many Thanks!!!!!

 

[BiocideJ]

Very possible that the database has been corrupted.
You can open the main database (if you can) directly and try the compact/repair utility.

In my version of Access that would be Database Tools > Compact and Repair Database

If you CANNOT open the database, you can also use the compact/repair utility by
Openining Microsoft Access through the Start Menu (i.e. not opening an actual database but the Access program itself)
Run the Compact/Repair Utility (using the method I stated above)
Since no database is currently open, you will be prompted for the location of the file you want to repair.
Browse to and click OPEN on either of the databases you are having problems with and hope that you get success.

If this does not work, it is very possibly corrupted beyond compare and hopefully you have a backup of the database.

 

[brumby]

we can open the database on the server computer, we can amend / add records no problem. Its simply when we try to open them from the showroom computers

 

[xenou]

With all the DB's closed, you may want to delete the lock file(s) on the server (which will be in the same folder as the database(s) with an .ldb extension. And also to compact and repair the backend database(s). If nothing else has really changed it suggests a corrupted database and the Compact and Repair is a good place to start. Copy the DB file as is so you have a copy of it too, just in case.

Causes are many:
1) Linking to an Excel file as a "table" will lock a database.
2) Any unsaved design changes in the backend databases will prevent other users from having access
3) Users must have write permissions on the folder where the database lives, so they can write to the lock file.
4) Of course there must be no one who has actually opened the database exclusively (which is usually done only to make changes to the database design or if you have mistakenly set the datababase to always open exclusively).

 

[BiocideJ]

3) Users must have write permissions on the folder where the database lives, so they can write to the lock file.

Since you just updated the showroom computers I would guess this to be a likely culprit if compact/repair does not resolve anything.
You can test this by trying to add a folder to the network drive where the database is stored from the showroom computer.
based on your message those locations would be
\\Ian\backup\SCOTSTOC\
\\Ian\backup\CUSTDATA\