Access Forms & Reports keeps disappearing

Question

I have a database which is split into a front end and backend. It seams like almost every day my forms and reports disappears from the front end of the database, and I have to restore a backup. Can anyone tell me why this keeps happening. Thanks very much.

Answer 1

John,

I think you figured it out, because I am getting updates for the front end, and it looks as if it happens when I get the updates. I am going to disable the update for a few days and see what happens. Thanks very much.

It sounds like you are making changes to the front end, adding forms and reports. So, unless you provide those forms and reports to the developer, whenever he deploys an update, your custom forms and reports will not be there. The general process here, is that update FEs REPLACE existing FEs. They do not just apply updates. 

In my company, users would not be allowed to add their own customization to a FE. That is controlled by IT (me). The answer here is to maintain a separate FE with your own forms and reports. So, when an FE update is deployed, you still have your own FE with your objects.

Answer 2

You may need to work with whoever is providing the updates. Obviously if you download an updated frontend, it will replace whatever private changes you have made to your frontend.

This can be a dilemma, because there are probably changes that you should have in the update, and you might want them as well as your own changes.

Answer 3

John,

I think you figured it out, because I am getting updates for the front end, and it looks as if it happens when I get the updates. I am going to disable the update for a few days and see what happens. Thanks very much.

Answer 4

There MUST be something in your code causing this: I've never seen even a corrupt database just lose objects. What I'd suspect is that you have some code to keep the frontend up to date, and it's being called incorrectly or is bringing in an obsolete copy of the frontend. 

Under what circumstances do things disappear? After closing and opening Access, in the middle of a session, or what? Do you have Compact on Close turned on? If so turn it off (though it shouldn't cause object loss).