I hope someone can help with this, because it's starting to drive me NUTS.

I have a back-end / front-end system, with 6 users linking to the same back-end with their own front-end. Ever since we started using this setup in earnest, we have been getting this error almost daily:

-2147467259 Unrecognized Database Format

To fix this I have to kick everyone out and open the back-end, which prompts me to Compact and Repair. I've researched this throughout the internet and it seems the problem is Jet / Access version compatability (i.e., Jet 3.51 or older does not work with Access 2000 or above, which causes this error). We are using Access 2000. The problem stems from the fact that not everyone has the same version of files on their PC. One person had Access 97 and eventually we got him a new PC. A few others had Jet 3.51 and Jet 4.0, so I removed the old versions of Jet completely. Another cause could be an old version of DAO (3.5 or older), but DAO is not used anywhere in my code (ADO exclusively), and besides, everyone has 3.6. All databases were created with Access 2000.

So...it's obviously some type of compatability issue, but even though everyone has Access 2000 and Jet 4.0 only (no one has any older versions) - the error continues to occur, and I am on the verge of going mad. As far as I can tell, there is no reason this should be happening.

The front-end creates and destroys links to the back-end on open and close, but I have no idea what kind of connection Access uses to create those, so I'm not sure if that could be causing the problem.

Does anyone have any idea what else could be causing this, or how I can fix it? I'd be eternally grateful. Thanks.

Everyone should have all the Office service packs. The backend should be in the lowest version anyone uses. If anyone has 97 use that. The frontends can be in 2000 or 97 and you'll be fine. If the links don't change I see no need to create and destroy them. I use a split db system with none of that and have no corruption.

HTH
Ken

Thanks for the response. I will turn off the functionality that creates and destroys links and see if that does anything. I basically put that in there so I could control what tables certain people have linked (i.e., the supervisor has links to extra tables his employees don't need) and so I wouldn't have to maintain separate versions of the database. I will also try recreating the front and back ends by importing into a new database with Access 2000. Nobody has 97, so in theory it shouldn't be a factor.

If anyone else has any suggestions, please feel free to post them. Thanks.

You're welcome, if you need any more help just ask.

I am still getting this error. I've recreated everything with Access 2000, DAO is not used or even referenced in the database and no one even has Jet 3.51 on their PCs (all connections are using Jet 4.0). Everyone has the most recent Office service packs. I am at a complete loss. All the documentation I've found says nothing about what version of ADO should be used...does anyone know if that could be a problem?

Sound like the database is getting corrupted ..
You will receive that error if the file gets corrupted ...

RDH

Did you solve this? I have the same problem.

Mostly, one user is using the system and, in desperation, I loaded the backend databases locally onto her machine, but it makes little difference.

Welcome to UA.

Could you explain further ...

You need all Office 2000 service packs. Up to sp3. You need to leave the be on the server. Make sure the user always exits the database normally, meaning via the "X" or exit. Never let them close it via Ctl-alt-delete if at all possible.

See if any of that helps.
Ken

My system is installed on two customer sites plus my own Win2K server. One customer site is running a workgroup with one of the Win2K Pro machines acting as the server. That site gets no corruption and they do not have SP2 or SP3 installed

The other customer site keeps getting corruption and has SP3 installed. I originally installed the database on their Win2K server with the client database on XP machines. I have now installed the backend database on an XP machine and only the user on that machine is using the database - she has the front end and backend databases installed and connects to the linked tables through a subst command. she does not appear to be doing anything unusual that might cause the corruption.

I have loaded a copy of the system on my own Win2K server and I am running it in the same way as the user with the XP machine. I do not have SP2 or SP3 installed, yet I do not get corruption. As only one user is ever trying to use the system, presumably the problem is not concerned with multi-user, although I suppose it could be something to do with the lock file. Could it be an XP issue?

Originally, this customer installed Office 2003 and I made them revert to Office 2000. Could it be that the Jet engine from Office 2003 is still on the machine and that is causing the problem?

Michael

I have now four Versions of Access in my system. No corruption has been found. All Service Packs are patched. My Back-end has '97 version ...

It could be due to network hiccups ...
check each connection to the back-end using ...

Ping servername -t
If there's no ReQuest Timed out ...
your network connection is fine ...

Now check for Folder Share to have each client have full read/write ...
I have various OS's in my clients ...
2000 Pro, XP Pro, and some '98 SE ...

Since it was still getting corrupted with the fe and be on the same machine there is no network issue that caused this. SP3 fixed errors that cause dbs to lose network connections. And just because nothing has broke on the pcs that don't have sp3 doesn't mean you are safe. It is highly recommended to run all service packs for Office. The jet engine is also not the issue. You should also run the newest jet patch on all these machines.



This makes no sense. Why does the user have the backend installed yet still link to something different? The way to set this up is the fe gets copied to each users pc. The be sits on 1 server and the fe links to this db. Access has built in table linking that doesn't need to change once it's set up.

I won't even try to guess what else could be your problem unless you patch all your machines. So many issues have been fixed by these patches. In my experience it is just ridiculous to try to debug an error or problem that has been fixed all by simply running a patch. If that fails then you move on. I've been there and spent hours looking for what I did wrong and it was nothing every time.

Ken

None of this very helpful. To say that it makes no sense to have the be and fe on the same machine is to ignore the reality. I did that to avoid any network issues. The fact that it corrupts tells me that it is not a network issue. The fact that the machine that corrupts has all the software patches installed tells me that they do NOT fix the problem. I was hoping for some creative suggestions.

We're trouble shooting the same problem here. I just had IT up date our SPs. We're on Win 2000 using Access97 with MsJet40. Our FE and BE is on the surver and we all load the FE from the server. We have a commercial application with some customizations that we did. To keep the customizations to a miniumum in the commercial database we split them out to a second FE and BE with the second customized FE having links to the commercial BE and the second BE. For our customizations to have accurate up to date data we had to link it to the commercial BE to pull that data for queries and reports. And any modified data is kept in the second BE. We had the error again after IT was done I waiting to see if it happens as often as before.

I resolved my problem by removing Office completely from the main users' machine (where the corruptions were mostly happening) and then reinstalling it with all the patches from scratch. As I have the distribution files on the server, it did not take very long, but it did work - I have had no corruptions at all for four weeks now.
I did not reinstall it on any other machine and it seems to run ok on two others, although they use the database much less.

Give it a try.

It might be nice if the problem was at least acknowledged on the Microsoft web site.

You are using Access 97 with MsJet40 ???

I don't think so ...
Access 97 uses Jet 3.x and not Jet 4 ...
Jet 4 is used in Access 2000 and higher versions ...

RDH

I told IT that in the ticket I submitted. We have Win2000 Professional and Access 97 because of the commercial database we run and yes we have MsJet40.08618.0. on all the computers running our database. I found this out when we started having errors. We had 3 different versions of MsJet40. I even included the Microsoft Article on how prevent corruptions and the article showing which versions of msjet goes with which version of Access. I guess they figured it was too late to revert back to Version 35.

What I am saying is that Access 97 does not, and can not use Jet 4.0.
Jet 4 is eclusively used by Access 2000 and higher ...
It must use Jet 3.x and there is no way for is to use Jet 4 ...

You need to check .. there will be a Jet 3 dll that is beiing used by Access 97 and it should be that latest version that can be downloaded from Microsoft.

RDH

Thanks, my mistake there is a msjet35 file on each of our computers. I still have to check one more computer to see if it has the same version. My guess it doesn't because the error occurs more often when it is logged on the database. Is it just the DLL file or are there more files that go with that for it to work correctly?

I would make sure that all Access 97 machine had the latest Jet 3 update installed.

This can be downloaded form Microsoft ...

Here is a link to what you need:

Jet 3.51 Service Pack 3

RDH