Continual unrecoverable Form corruption

[Rico]

Hello,

I have a form that seems to corrupt over and over again. I can't open it in
design view, usually getting a message like "There isn't enough memory to
perform this operation. Close unneeded programs and try the operation
again.". I can get to the code but can't seem to do anything to get into
design view. The thing I thought about at first was the number of controls
on the form; there are about 320 controls, but that is still about half of
the Access limit of 754. I also removed about 120 text boxes and placed
them in a subform to reduce the number of controls on the main form. Any
idea what might be causing this problem? at this point, I feel like I'm
spinning my wheels, because I have to keep restoring from a previous
version, then modify and hopefully save a copy before the form corrupts
again. One thing I should add, is the corruption only happens when I'm
modifying the design.

Any help or direction on this issue would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!
Rick

 

[Bob Alston]

Hello,

I have a form that seems to corrupt over and over again. I can't open it in
design view, usually getting a message like "There isn't enough memory to
perform this operation. Close unneeded programs and try the operation
again.". I can get to the code but can't seem to do anything to get into
design view. The thing I thought about at first was the number of controls
on the form; there are about 320 controls, but that is still about half of
the Access limit of 754. I also removed about 120 text boxes and placed
them in a subform to reduce the number of controls on the main form. Any
idea what might be causing this problem? at this point, I feel like I'm
spinning my wheels, because I have to keep restoring from a previous
version, then modify and hopefully save a copy before the form corrupts
again. One thing I should add, is the corruption only happens when I'm
modifying the design.

Any help or direction on this issue would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!
Rick

1)Try copying the form in the current database and try editing the copy.

2)Try importing the form into a clean database, that has any source
tables and queries defined.

3) Try saving the sub form and then replacing it with a very simple
subform - to see if that can be edited.

4) After recovering from a previous version, what edits do you do to the
form? After these edits are you EVER able to edit it?

Bob

 

[Pieter Wijnen]

remember that the 754 limit is life-span
it might be an idea to export the form (using application.saveastext) &
importing
(application.loadfromtext)
Pieter

 

[George Nicholson]

I also removed about 120 text boxes and placed them in a subform to reduce

the number of controls on the main form.

Deleted controls still count against the 754 limit. It's a life-span
limitation that Compact/Repair does not reset (like it would the 255 field
limitation of a Table).

 

[Guest]

Dunno. I've seen the same thing, and I tried EVERYTHING I could
think of, including saveastext and switching between 2000 and 2003.
In order to work around the problem, I moved a lot of the code-behind
-form out into a separate module (passing a form reference so that I
could continue to use Me. in the subroutines). That solved the problem
with that code -- changing that code didn't require a form design change
-- but didn't fix the form -- even with less code it still corrupted on
saving from design view.

I had a lot of complex form-related code in that form, as well as many
controls. What about you? Do you have a lot of complex code, or just
many controls?

(david)

 

[Salad]

Hello,

I have a form that seems to corrupt over and over again. I can't open it in
design view, usually getting a message like "There isn't enough memory to
perform this operation. Close unneeded programs and try the operation
again.". I can get to the code but can't seem to do anything to get into
design view. The thing I thought about at first was the number of controls
on the form; there are about 320 controls, but that is still about half of
the Access limit of 754. I also removed about 120 text boxes and placed
them in a subform to reduce the number of controls on the main form. Any
idea what might be causing this problem? at this point, I feel like I'm
spinning my wheels, because I have to keep restoring from a previous
version, then modify and hopefully save a copy before the form corrupts
again. One thing I should add, is the corruption only happens when I'm
modifying the design.

Any help or direction on this issue would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!
Rick

Along with the other's comments...sometimes I open the "corrupt" form
and create a new form and select all controls on the bad form and do and
Edit/Copy from the bad form and Edit/Paste to the new form. Then copy
in the code. Then save the new form, delete the old.

 

[Rico]

That would work if I could open the form in design view.

 

[Rico]

No complex code, just a lot of controls.

Dunno. I've seen the same thing, and I tried EVERYTHING I could
think of, including saveastext and switching between 2000 and 2003.
In order to work around the problem, I moved a lot of the code-behind
-form out into a separate module (passing a form reference so that I
could continue to use Me. in the subroutines). That solved the problem
with that code -- changing that code didn't require a form design change
-- but didn't fix the form -- even with less code it still corrupted on
saving from design view.

I had a lot of complex form-related code in that form, as well as many
controls. What about you? Do you have a lot of complex code, or just
many controls?

(david)

 

[Rico]

Thank you, I didn't know that. I wonder who O.K.ed THAT design, it seems
like it is likely a workaround...err.."new standard" for something else.

 

[Rico]

I tried SaveAsText but the app craps out before saving.

"Pieter Wijnen"

 

[Rico]

Hi Bob,

Thanks for your advice. I wound up recreating the entire form from scratch,
one control at a time, but, to answer your question;

4) After recovering from a previous version, what edits do you do to the
form? After these edits are you EVER able to edit it?

All I was doing was trying to add a new combo box. after adding and saving
the form, I haven't been able to open it.

Rick

 

[George Nicholson]

If you think about it, it actually makes sense. Querydefs, Tablesdefs,
Fields, Indexes, etc. are part of the data structure (DAO) and Compact &
Repair is only intended to work with Data objects. Forms & Reports are
non-data Access objects. Compact & Repair can't/won't touch them (or code
modules, or macros...).

It's not so much as who okayed the design, but the fact that Compact &
Repair only addresses the most important "clean up" issues and the remaining
(much less common) issues remain unaddressed, unless done manually.

HTH,

 

[George Nicholson]

Can you import the corrupted form into a new blank database? Just that form,
nothing else?

If you can't then i'd give up. If it won't import I'd call it corrupted
beyond repair. Rebuild it from scratch or a usable backup (a backup version
carries a reoccurance risk however, so be careful..).

If you can import it, and can also open it in design view, then the import
*may* have fixed it & you can import all other objects into the new mdb file
and move forward.

HTH,

 

[Bob Alston]

Hi Bob,

Thanks for your advice. I wound up recreating the entire form from scratch,
one control at a time, but, to answer your question;


All I was doing was trying to add a new combo box. after adding and saving
the form, I haven't been able to open it.

Rick

So is it now working OK? If so the problem was probably the lifetime
max on controls. A way around this is to copy the form, delete the
original then rename the copy. works slick. works for tables also.

bob

 

[Guest]

That's a design issue too. In Access 2.0 "Access Basic"
objects had the same status as other objects stored
in the database. Did Access 2.0 have the life-time
limits as well?

Certainly Access 95 had life-time limits, and in Access
95 Forms and Reports were data objects, but the data
objects themselves were VBA objects, ie you could
compact and repair the project, but you couldn't compact
and repair a form.

(david)