Can't open database because of Bookmark error

[Ron Clark AU]

I have a student who was building a database and when she tried to open the
database since the last session she gets a message saying Not a valid
bookmark. We cannot open the database to repair the problem. How do I get
past this error so I can load the database. Using Access 207.

 

[John W. Vinson]

On Thu, 29 Oct 2009 10:52:04 -0700, Ron Clark AU <Ron Clark

I have a student who was building a database and when she tried to open the
database since the last session she gets a message saying Not a valid
bookmark. We cannot open the database to repair the problem. How do I get
past this error so I can load the database. Using Access 207.

Try holding down the Shift key while the database is opening to bypass the
startup code.

 

[Jerry Whittle]

You may have a corrupt database.

Tony Toews has an excellent web page on database corruption.
Http://www.granite.ab.ca/access/corruptmdbs.htm

Allen Brown also has excellent info on corruption.
Http://allenbrowne.com/ser-47.html

I have a white paper in a Word document named Fix Corrupt Access Database
towards the bottom this page:
http://www.rogersaccesslibrary.com/OtherLibraries.asp

 

[malick]

I have a student who was building a database and when she tried to open
the
database since the last session she gets a message saying Not a valid
bookmark. We cannot open the database to repair the problem. How do I
get
past this error so I can load the database. Using Access 207.

 

[Tony Toews [MVP]]

I have a student who was building a database and when she tried to open the
database since the last session she gets a message saying Not a valid
bookmark. We cannot open the database to repair the problem. How do I get
past this error so I can load the database. Using Access 207.

Just curious. Did the student keep the database on a thumb drive aka
memory stick?

Tony
--
Tony Toews, Microsoft Access MVP
Tony's Main MS Access pages - http://www.granite.ab.ca/accsmstr.htm
Tony's Microsoft Access Blog - http://msmvps.com/blogs/access/
For a free, convenient utility to keep your users FEs and other files
updated see http://www.autofeupdater.com/
Granite Fleet Manager http://www.granitefleet.com/

 

[Ron Clark AU]

Yes. She was working in a campus lab and saved her file on a USB thumb drive.

 

[Jerry Whittle]

I bet I know where Tony is going with this one. I warn my students to
completely shut down Access, not just the database - but Access, then wait a
few seconds before removing the flash drive. Windows often delays writing to
flash drives and if it is pulled out of the USB port too soon, the database
is corrupt.

Back in the day when we used 3 1/2" floppy drives, it was a really bad
problem.

 

[Tony Toews [MVP]]

I bet I know where Tony is going with this one. I warn my students to
completely shut down Access, not just the database - but Access, then wait a
few seconds before removing the flash drive. Windows often delays writing to
flash drives and if it is pulled out of the USB port too soon, the database
is corrupt.

Back in the day when we used 3 1/2" floppy drives, it was a really bad
problem.

Yes, that's definitely part of it.

But I also wonder if thumb drives are stable enough for the constant
read/write activities of Access. They're fine for, say, Word or Excel
where you open the file once, work for an hour or two and the close
the file on the thumb drive.

Tony
--
Tony Toews, Microsoft Access MVP
Tony's Main MS Access pages - http://www.granite.ab.ca/accsmstr.htm
Tony's Microsoft Access Blog - http://msmvps.com/blogs/access/
For a free, convenient utility to keep your users FEs and other files
updated see http://www.autofeupdater.com/
Granite Fleet Manager http://www.granitefleet.com/

 

[Tony Toews [MVP]]

Yes. She was working in a campus lab and saved her file on a USB thumb drive.

But did she copy the Access file to the hard drive and work with it on
the hard drive. Then copy back to the thumb drive. Or directly on
the thumb drive?

Tony
--
Tony Toews, Microsoft Access MVP
Tony's Main MS Access pages - http://www.granite.ab.ca/accsmstr.htm
Tony's Microsoft Access Blog - http://msmvps.com/blogs/access/
For a free, convenient utility to keep your users FEs and other files
updated see http://www.autofeupdater.com/
Granite Fleet Manager http://www.granitefleet.com/

 

[David W. Fenton]

But I also wonder if thumb drives are stable enough for the
constant read/write activities of Access. They're fine for, say,
Word or Excel where you open the file once, work for an hour or
two and the close the file on the thumb drive.

I've done short sessions of opening MDBs from thumb drives, as well
as importing objects from MDBs stored on them, but I certainly
wouldn't contemplate working from it for any length of time.

 

[Ron Clark AU]

Working from the USB drive sounds like the issue. The students have hard
drive space on the network and I tell them to use that to work from but I
often catch them working directly from the USB drive. This might explain
some of my other problems this semester. The most common issue I have had
this semester is a "dirty" error on exiting a form (I didn't have this
problem in Spring semester). The network has Access 2007 but the default
file format was set to 2002-2003. Students who created a 2002-2003 format
database got this "dirty" error. I solved the problem by saving their file
as a 2007 format and then replacing the close form command button. Anyway,
thanks all for the valuable help. I will discuss this issue of using USB
drives with our network manager. Thanks.