I have some programs written in VB6 which use a 30MB Access 2007 data file named BidBase.accdb. I have been able to open this file in Access 2007 for years, but now when I try, Access says "The document 'BidBase.accdb' caused a serious error the last time it was opened."
Here's where it gets strange:
If I rename the file to anything else, such as BidBase1.accdb, Access will open it.
If I copy the same file to another directory Access will open it.
My VB6 programs which use this file still open it and work with it okay.
My PC is setup to make daily backups of my VB6 projects to an external hard drive.
Opening the same file in one of those backup directories works, but if I copy that file to the root directory of that drive, it doesn't work. But on my internal drive, it's just the opposite - it won't load from in my VB6 directory but will load when copied to C:.
I don't have to open it with Access very often. I recently got a new PC on which I installed Access from the original disc, and that's where I first got the error, but when I went back to the old PC, the same thing happens, so it would not seem to be a problem with my PC. In other words, it's hard to imagine that reinstalling Access or any other potential solutions specific to this PC would help.
In 40 years of working with PCs, this is the most bizarre, inexplicable thing I've ever seen.
Try this:
Backup your file
Rename the file
Open the file in Access
"Save as" the file naming it BidBase.accdb
Close Access
Open BidBase.accdb
I tried loading it under a different name but when I did a Save-As, it gave me the same error message as when I tried to open it, even though the file is not present by that name any more, indicating that Access is keeping track of the problem file by name, but still doesn't explain why it flagged the file under that name but not the same file under other names.
But the next oddity is that it did save it under the name BidBase.accdb, but that file is only 5MB while the original is 31MB. I've compared the two files and the contents appear to be the same.
And now that my attention has been drawn to that, I realize that the largest table in the database has about 10k records, meaning that each record in the 31MB DB would have 3,100 bytes, which isn't remotely possible.
I also tried using the newly saved file under the old name in my programs and they work, but then they also worked with the old file under the old name when Access wouldn't.
So I'll keep working with the new file for a while to make sure it's okay, but this is all still a bizarre mystery to me.
Related
I'm trying to copy a file from a local computer to a remote share but I get an exception saying "Can't find the specified file".
My.Computer.FileSystem.CopyFile("C:\filename.jpg", "\\focserver2\consultoria\teste\filename.jpg")
The remote shared folder has full control permissions on "Everyone".
What am I doing wrong? Or it's not possible to copy to network paths using FileSystem.CopyFile ?
Thanks.
João
The issue does not appear to be the destination but the source. I assume that the sample you showed above is NOT the real code and in the real code, you combine a couple values together to define the source. To help prevent issues, get in the habit of using the Path.Combine() method when concatenating strings for a file path. It's a life-saver.
The next most important thing is to learn how to debug your code by setting break-points and seeing what the values of your combined strings are before posting to websites. This is a good one to get you started. http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/debugging-tips-with-visual-studio-2010
Most likely the problem is that you are trying to access the root folder of the C:\ drive. This folder is generally locked down by the operating system, and even simple file operations don't work easily there.
Try copying the file from a subfolder e.g.
My.Computer.FileSystem.CopyFile("C:\Temp\filename.jpg", "\\focserver2\consultoria\teste\filename.jpg")
So we have a client that creates "training packages" and then uploads them via ftp to their website. They create the training packages in PowerPoint, and then use some program to convert them into html/swf files and package them within a folder. When they upload, they use Filezilla, and just transfer the entire folder over. The folder is uniquely named, uses no spaces or special characters.
These files have uploaded fine for about a year. Recently, they've run into a problem. Whenever they try to upload training package folder, they are immediately presented with the "This file already exists, do you want to overwrite?" message. Except... the folder they're moving is brand new, and the file it's asking to overwrite DOESN'T EXIST. When they choose "Overwrite" the file looks like it transfers, but the file size is wrong, and the training package doesn't work correctly.
This happens with every training package they try to upload. It's not just a badly outputted package. Also, it's always the same file that has the problem--it's the main "player" for the training package, and though it contains different content for every package, it is the same file name (cplayer.swf) every time.
Things they've tried without success:
-Re-uploading the file again by itself, and overwriting
-Deleting the "bad" file and re-uploading the single file - Get the overwrite message again, even though the file DOES NOT EXIST.
-Renaming the file on the server and re-uploading the single file - Get the overwrite message.
-Renaming the single file locally within the package and uploading/renaming it - Won't let us rename because the file already exists.
-Used another FTP client - Same results as above, so not a client specific problem.
-Used a different FTP login - Same results as above, so not a permissions problem.
Other things of note:
-The file is small--it's not a time out problem. Plus, all other files upload fine, and some are a lot larger.
-They've emailed this file to me, and I've uploaded it successfully.
I am completely at my wits end. Does anyone have any ideas where I can at least troubleshoot a little further?
Thanks for the non-help, the downvote, and the general lack of response on what was a pretty serious issue for me.
In case anyone else has a similar problem, here's what was going on:
Virus software (specifically Malware Bytes) was blocking THIS ONE SINGLE FILE. All I had to do was exclude the folder that contained the file.
I came by this page and was thinking about the best method to distribute my VbaProject.OTM file (located into %appdata%\Microsoft\Outlook\) to a bunch of ~30 users at my office. Is it better to simply copy/paste the OTM file onto the network and then copy/paste it back to all users' computers (manually or with a .bat) OR would it be better to use the method described in the link above to generate a OPS file and import it back with Proflwiz.exe? What's the difference?
We are all on Microsoft Office Outlook 2003 actually, we might upgrade to 2007 one day but still years from now.
Finally came up with some elements to deploy a Outlook VBA Project. There are a lot of ways to do this, but the easiest way to do so without installing anything and keeping the same methodology would be to run a OTM file directly from a server. I found out that the process outlook.exe has a parameter altvba that allows to specify another path to run the OTM file from. Here is en example:
outlook.exe /altvba "\\myServer\myFolder\myFile.otm"
This allows me to update only one file to get all computers updated. Obviously, if the file is big and the server's ping is on the high side, it may delay the launch of Outlook. The other problem with this method is that everybody will have to shut down Office if you want to update the OTM file on the server (and if you do work in an office where everyone uses Outlook, you do know that it is impossible to get everyone to shut it down at the same time, except if you code a macro to do so eventually). To prevent both those problems, I could setup a batch file to copy the server OTM file clientside everytime there is a new version (just have to check the NTFS last-modify attribute). This way, Outlook will boot with a local file, the batch file take 2-3 seconds to copy the file if needed (or will launch Outlook instantaneously) and there will be no problem updating the OTM file on the server. Users will have to start Outlook with the batch file (or with the slightly different outlook.exe path with the altvba parameter, so either way they need a different shortcut/file to start off the first time). One other advantage of the altvba is that it's still easy for the user to run Outlook without it (to see if the VBA is problematic or not in case Outlook is sluggish) and the file will remain unchanged after a Outlook reinitialization.
Others solutions include a COM complement that can be developed in a lot on languages including VB6 (no conversion needed from VBA). There is also a bunch of tools included into Microsoft Office XP Developer that could help getting the job done (not free however, especially if you need the most up-to-date version).
I am trying to watch files in a directory to determine when files are opened/accessed. I thought FileSystemWatcher would do the trick using the event Changed.
Problem is that some applications do not create a lock on the file they open/access or change either the date modified or date accessed (even after fsutil behavior set disablelastaccess 0). Notepad for example. Apparently is makes a copy of the file in memory and plays with it there until you save it. Nor does it update the Date Accessed.
How can I monitor a directory of files and be notified when a file is simply opened/accessed by any program (e.g. Notepad)? Files may be opened from another computer, not necessarily on the computer running the "watcher".
I found lots of similar questions but did not see one focusing on file "access".
This is quite normal. Updating an existing file is quite dangerous since it can cause irretrievable data loss. A disk error (like disk full) while writing is very bad news. The common algorithm used:
rename the original file
write a new file using the original name
no error: delete the renamed file
error: delete the new file, rename original file back
Clearly this doesn't cause a Changed event to be raised, no file was changed.
Sorry, I didn't read the question well enough. There is no notification whatsoever for an app just opening a file for reading. FSW can only detect changes to the file system. There is no ready alternative either, this requires a custom file system filter driver that snoops on driver requests. Like the kind that SysInternals' ProcMon utility uses. I'm not aware of such a driver ready for use in a C# program, you can't write them in C# either. This just isn't a common requirement.
Right now we have a program that opens all of the word files in a folder and adds some information to the footer. After switching from Windows XP and Word 2003 to Windows 7 and Word 2007 we have started getting the following error:
Run-time error '5096':
EOALPHABETICARABICARABICABJADARABICALPHABAHTTEXTCAPSCA
(c:\Users...\Content.MSO\8BE508C6.docx)
It occurs at random in any of the files (you can be 10 files in or 100). I thought that it might be a problem with the files being on a network drive so I modified the program to copy each file locally first, add the footer to that copy, and then copy it back out to the network. However, that didn't seem to work. I'm looking for any suggestions on how to fix the problem or possibly rewrite the solution. However, I need to keep the solution in VBA since this app is part of a bigger suite which in not ready for a .NET re-write.
As it turns out I was able to workaround this problem by copying the word files locally, running the main code on the local copies, then copying them back out to the network. It didn't seem to be working at first because the user's machine on which I tested it did not have the most recent version of the program.
Adding this note for those still looking for answers to this error...
I have a macro that creates several docs from one that is open based on sections in the main document.
I was getting the Run-time error '5096' and was an able to find any solutions that worked.
Upon further examination while debugging the code I discovered that while pulling data out of the main doc and building a file name that there was a carriage return after the file name and before the extension. After adding a replace statement to remove carriage returns I am able to process documents all day without an error.
I have found that the error is caused by the total number of characters in the file name is too long. This usually occurs when manipulating file names and the full path is set in the variable. I will manually chop pieces out of real long names to force it to work.
I suppose if I were smart, I'd move into the directory and just deal with the file names without the directory prepended to the name.