Repeat Section property causes Access 97 to hang

[DZ]

Access 97, Windows XP, 2 gbs Ram 2000MHTZ machine

I set the Repeat Section property for a report Group header to yes. There
are about 1400 records and 30 groups for this header.

When i switch to preview, the Status bar says ""Formatting page, press
Ctrl+Break to stop". The progress bar indicates that the process is complete,
but the process hangs at this stage and the report is not displayed. I just
see the frame of the Report window but the window is empty. When I change the
Repeat Section property for the group header to no, no problems.

As an experiment to try to isolate the problem, I tried the following with
the following results

One field in the table is a memo field. When I remove the memo field, the
problem vanishes.

Other tables with memo fields don't have this problem. I am able to Group
with the
Repeat Section property for the group header to yes.The report displays with
no problem.

Thanks for any help on this.

DZ

 

[Allen Browne]

Particularly if you have Keep Together set to Yes for some sections, or in
the Sorting And Grouping dialog you have sections marked for keeping with
next or keeping whole blocks together, you can create situations that force
Access to do an enormous amount of back-tracking before it can plot a valid
solution. With thousands of records, it may literally take hours to plot a
solution. It is even possible to create endless loops where there is no
valid solution for the combination of conditions.

Your group header's Repeat Section property is only one factor in the whole
scenario. You could experiment by reducing the number of interacting factors
to see if that helps. Sections that CanGrow/CanShrink can also be a factor.

 

[Marshall Barton]

Access 97, Windows XP, 2 gbs Ram 2000MHTZ machine

I set the Repeat Section property for a report Group header to yes. There
are about 1400 records and 30 groups for this header.

When i switch to preview, the Status bar says ""Formatting page, press
Ctrl+Break to stop". The progress bar indicates that the process is complete,
but the process hangs at this stage and the report is not displayed. I just
see the frame of the Report window but the window is empty. When I change the
Repeat Section property for the group header to no, no problems.

As an experiment to try to isolate the problem, I tried the following with
the following results

One field in the table is a memo field. When I remove the memo field, the
problem vanishes.

Other tables with memo fields don't have this problem. I am able to Group
with the
Repeat Section property for the group header to yes.The report displays with
no problem.

The only time I've seen repeat section hang like that is
when I canceled or made the section invisible.

Maybe your issue is caused by some factor in the memo field.
Can it grow? Is it longer than others that work? Anything
else about it that's unusual?

 

[DZ]

Marshall

Thanks alot. You helped narrow it down some more. Its definately something
with the memo field.

With the can set prop to no for the memo field, the problem vanishes.
Wow. This is a bit of a limitation that Access takes too much computering to
do this with the CAn Grow on. Well at least I have yet another work around
which is to have the memo field only partially viewable (Can Grow set to no)

Thanks alot