compacting a large database

[Karen Roem]

I'm receiving an "Invalid argument" error message when
trying to add a record to an Access database file that
approaches the 2 GB size limitation. Compacting the
database (as suggested in
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-
US;835416) has no effect and the other workaround to split
the database is not an option (for us).

Anybody has any other recommendations?

Karen

 

[John Vinson]

I'm receiving an "Invalid argument" error message when
trying to add a record to an Access database file that
approaches the 2 GB size limitation. Compacting the
database (as suggested in
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-
US;835416) has no effect and the other workaround to split
the database is not an option (for us).

Anybody has any other recommendations?

Try creating a new, completely empty database and using File... Get
External Data... Import to import everything into it.

If you have nearly 2 GByte of text data, Access may be the wrong tool;
consider moving this data to a client/server application such as
SQL/Server, Oracle, or MySQL. If you have graphics images in the
database, consider storing them as external .jpg (or other graphic
format) files, and storing only a path and filename in your table -
Access is wretched at handling graphics.