Invalid argument

[Daisy]

Background: Access 2000 database, FE/BE. FE is distributed to about 30
users on their hard drives. BE resides on network drive. Novell
network. Some workstations are Win2000; some are WinXP.

Database has been working fine for over a year. Suddenly, users are
getting "invalid argument" when they click a command button called
"Complaints." There is no error number on the message. The Complaints
button opens a subform which is based on an SQL statement, which is
based on the Complaints table.

I copied both FE and BE to my hard drive and re-linked them. Complaints
button still generates "invalid argument." I then opened the Complaints
table on the BE and it opens fine.

Question: if a record(s)in the Complaints table is corrupted, would the
table still open? If so, how do I fix the corrupted record(s)? Or is
the problem something else?

I checked the event procedure on the Complaints button and it's fine.
And since all the users are having the problem and they all have their
own copy of the FE, the problem MUST be on the BE.

I've looked at all the other posts but none was specific to my
situation. Thanks in advance for any help. This site is a livesaver!

 

[Douglas J. Steele]

Does the query use any functions in it? You could have a problem with the
References collection.

References problems can be caused by differences in either the location or
file version of certain files between the machine where the application was
developed, and where it's being run (or the file missing completely from the
target machine). Such differences are common when new software is installed.

On the machine(s) where it's not working, open any code module (or open the
Debug Window, using Ctrl-G, provided you haven't selected the "keep debug
window on top" option). Select Tools | References from the menu bar. Examine
all of the selected references.

If any of the selected references have "MISSING:" in front of them, unselect
them, and back out of the dialog. If you really need the reference(s) you
just unselected (you can tell by doing a Compile All Modules), go back in
and reselect them.

If none have "MISSING:", select an additional reference at random, back out
of the dialog, then go back in and unselect the reference you just added. If
that doesn't solve the problem, try to unselect as many of the selected
references as you can (Access may not let you unselect them all), back out
of the dialog, then go back in and reselect the references you just
unselected. (NOTE: write down what the references are before you delete
them, because they'll be in a different order when you go back in)

For far more than you could ever want to know about this problem, check out
http://www.accessmvp.com/djsteele/AccessReferenceErrors.html

 

[Daisy]

Thanks for responding so quickly. I read these groups a lot and I'm a
big fan of yours!

I thought about a missing reference, but the same problem is on 30
different machines. Would the reference be missing on all the machines
with the front end database, or on the server with the back end
database?

 

[Douglas J. Steele]

References on the backend don't matter.

It's possible that all 30 machines could have the same problem with the
frontend if the developer's machine had different versions of the software
than on the other machines.

 

[aaron.kempf]

I would look at Access Data Projects; they are a lot more manageable--
you can keep all your 'queries' on the database server; and access
comes with a free SQL Server Lite engine.

G2G good luck

-aaron