Link Child Master Fields on Form/Subform issue

[Danny J. Lesandrini]

I have a client who has a form/subform arrangement. The subform allows
users to update events that correspond to the parent.

They ny say that out of about a million event records, there are a hundred
or so where the subform record isn't being associated with the correct
parent record.

My first question was whether this was an Access or SQL Server back end.
(this client has both flavors). It's SQL Server, so I ruled out the possibility
that the MDB was getting close to 2 gig limit and simply misbehaving.

My next thought was that it's simply user error. They insist it's not. I don't
really believe them, but there are two possibilities:

1) Since it's an "event log", there does exist VBA code that auto-logs events
and it may be inserting the wrong ParentID. I haven't been able to confirm
yet if that applies, but even if it does, that still doesn't explain why it works
999,900 times and fails 100 times.

2) There exists some quirk I've never run across where the Link Child/Master
arrangement fails. I've never see such a thing, but would be curious if anyone
else ever has.

 

[Sylvain Lafontaine]

They should add some code that will check the ParentID on both the subform
and in the main form. This way, it might be possible to catch this error if
they found a case where they are different on the display.

--
Sylvain Lafontaine, ing.
MVP - Windows Live Platform
Email: sylvain aei ca (fill the blanks, no spam please)
Independent consultant and remote programming for Access and SQL-Server
(French)

 

[Danny J. Lesandrini]

Thanks, I thought about that. One flavor of this app had to include a special
SQL Server trigger to log when events were deleted because users said they
were disappearing by magic. The delete trigger usually pointed the finger at
one or the other user as the culprit. Funny how that works.

I'm almost certain it's users creating logs for Parent record A when they
think they're attaching it to Parent record B. When it comes to light, they
say, "It's not MY fault ... it's that bad program!"

I just want to rule out the possibility that someone else has see this behavior.
That it's not a side effect of some service pack or something.

 

[Sylvain Lafontaine]

I never heard of anything similar to this behavior that has been described
as either a bug from Access or from SQL-Server; including service pack or
anything else.

However, if they are using triggers or cascading update, a lot of things can
change and it's quite possible that they may have fallen into some sort of
trap but without having the possibility of taking a look at their code, it's
pure speculation here.

--
Sylvain Lafontaine, ing.
MVP - Windows Live Platform
Email: sylvain aei ca (fill the blanks, no spam please)
Independent consultant and remote programming for Access and SQL-Server
(French)

 

[Sylvain Lafontaine]

BTW, did you solve your problem about extracting PDF files from Access' OLE
Document?

--
Sylvain Lafontaine, ing.
MVP - Windows Live Platform
Email: sylvain aei ca (fill the blanks, no spam please)
Independent consultant and remote programming for Access and SQL-Server
(French)

 

[Danny J. Lesandrini]

Well, I didn't solve it, but I used Steven Leban's code ... and that worked.

 

[Jeanette Cunningham]

Hi Danny,
would you mind sharing which bit of Steven Leban's code you used?

Jeanette Cunningham MS Access MVP -- Melbourne Victoria Australia

 

[Jack Cannon]

Danny,

You stated that your client has a form/subform arrangement. That indicates
to me that human beings are manually calling up a primary record and creating
a subordinate record linked to the primary.

The generally accepted error rate for human beings is 2%. Your client is
claiming an error rate of 0.01%. You should compliment him. He is achieving
an error rate that is far better than the wildest dreams of most managers.

Jack Cannon

 

[Danny J. Lesandrini]

Jack:

Thanks for the statistics. I'm going to need that later when I explain to them that
I believe their problem is user error. I hadn't been aware of that 2% figure, but it's
good to know.

 

[Danny J. Lesandrini]

Jeanette:

Here's the link to the page where I downloaded his code.
http://www.lebans.com/oletodisk.htm

It includes a DLL that either has to go in the System32 folder, or is in
the same folder where you run the app.