Good afternoon,

I apologize if this is not the correct forum.

One of my customers is in a location that still uses a static IP address. She is using Access 2007 runtime for the front end. The split database has the front on her desktop and the backend on the server. The folder on the server is set as one of the trusted locations. The front end will not connect to the back end. None of the other customers using dynamic IP have any trouble.

Has any one out there had (and solved) issues with static IPs?
Thanks.

Static IP addresses are fine to use on both the client and server sides of a split database system. The key is the IP address of the back-end workstation or server. If that changes then you may have to change the front-end connection to the back-end (re-link the tables).

When you connect to a back-end you typically use a friendly name for that server/workstation or, less likely, use its static IP address. Open a linked-table in design mode in Access. Turn on Properties (F4) and note the description field. It may be something like this:

DATABASE=\\myServerName\myShareName\RE_Mgmt_DATA.accdb;TABLE=Switchboard Items

or

DATABASE=\\155.17.231.39\myShareName\RE_Mgmt_DATA.accdb;TABLE=Switchboard Items

The workstation/server where the back-end data lives in the above examples is "myServerName" and the static IP 155.17.231.39. "myShareName" is the name of a shared folder on that server.

If either the name or IP address changes then the link between the front-end and back-end will fail. Dynamic IP addresses assigned via DHCP can change over time; there is no guarantee that you will always have the same IP address so static IP addresses for the back-end server/workstation are important.

You can click your start button and click on "Run..." and type in the server and share combination (e.g. \\myServerName\myShareName ) and press <Enter> and an Explorer folder should open up. If not then you have an invalid server name or IP address or the shared folder either doesn't exist or you don't have appropriate permissions to it.

Hope that helps.

Thanks for the response! Actually, I have done pretty much all that already. The problem seems to be the combination of the static IP and the Access 20007 runtime, since the user can navigate to the folder that holds the back end database with no trouble using Windows Explorer. It's only when trying to start the front end that the connection is not made. There is no error message, the process just times out after a while.

What's odd is that this same user has used other split databases from this same static IP - only they connected to different folders on the server.
Very strange!