Opening Forms or Tables causes an Access 2007 file to crash

[Vexen]

I have been developing an application (Ziggy) for many years, and find that
sometimes a Form gets 'corrupted': Attempting to open it causes Access to
crash.

Ziggy is only used by me (single user), and its size floats randomly between
6MB and 100MB, though the data in it only increases slowly. The "compact and
repair" tool never fixes a corrupt form. I am using Windows Vista, and Office
2007 SP1.

The solution is sometimes to copy all the items on the form to a new form, or,
sometimes the solution is just to edit the form in Design mode and delete
something, then put it back again. If the form can't be opened in Design mode,
the solution is to import the form from a backup.

Now, in this project,

Whenever I open *any* form or table via buttons on the Ribbon, Access crashes.
I can open them all fine in Design mode, and they operate normally and can
invoke each other properly. But as soon as I open it normally, any attempt to
open a form or table causes it to crash.

Can anyone help?

Q1. What causes these corruptions? I see online that they also occur in split
databases (with front-end and back-end in different files), but as this is a
single-user db, there is no point doing that.

Q2. I knew how to recover individual forms from this, but how to I recover an
entire application?

Q3. Has anyone who experiences similar problems found any general ways around
them?

 

[CrazyAccessProgrammer]

I asked a similar question recently and a helpful person on this board
pointed me to:
http://allenbrowne.com/ser-25.html

Hopefully that will give you some help.

Unfortunatley it sounds like you have an 'database level' kind of
corruption. The first step should be to create a new database and then import
all your objects from the old database and then test it out.

By the way, I've experienced the same thing as you with specific objects in
my database becoming corrupt. Interestingly in my current database project
it's always the same form that seems to get corrupted at random... most of
the time when I haven't even touched that particular form.

Like you, most of the time I can fix it by editing something on the form and
saving the form. If that doesn't work I try opeing the form in design mode
and changing something in the VBA... like press the A key to put an A in VBA,
then backspace it out and save the module. When that doesn't work sometimes
renaming the form, press Enter to 'save' the new form name... then rename the
form back to its original name works.

I've never experienced a total database level corruption... though I read
elsewhere on the net that it does happen but rarely.

 

[Vexen via AccessMonster.com]

CrazyAccessProgrammer wrote:

Unfortunatley it sounds like you have an 'database level' kind of
corruption. The first step should be to create a new database and then import
all your objects from the old database and then test it out.

<snip>

Thanks for your advice and the link. I spent a few hours yesterday working on
fixing this; when I created a new db and done the import, I took the chance
to upgrade to 2007 format too, so I had to change a few things on that front.
Eventually all was well.

... and at least we're not alone...

 

[CrazyAccessProgrammer]

I picked up "Microsoft Office Access 2007 bible" and have been reading it for
the last few weeks and came across a piece of advice from this book on this
subject where they mention one possible way to fix corruption with a Form or
Report is to do the following:

Open the Form/Report in Design View
Open the properties for the Form/Report
Remove the Recordsource for the Form/Report By backspacing it all out
Save and Close the Form/Report
Open the Form/Report again
Replace the Recordsource information with whatever you just previously removed
Save and Close the Form/Report
Try running the Form/Report to see if its still corrupted or if you're
lucky, fixed.

 

[Jeanette Cunningham]

Hi, thanks for sharing that tip.

Jeanette Cunningham MS Access MVP -- Melbourne Victoria Australia