Access 2013 - Your network access was interrupted w/Windows 10

Question

I'm having a problem w/Windows 10 and Access 2013 (via Office 365) with network disconnects, although I really don't believe there to be a network problem.  Figured I'd start here, since the Windows 10 forum will most likely try to tell me this is an Access problem.

First off, we only have about 7 computers connected to a server, these same computers have been running Windows 7/Access 2010 for years without any disconnect problems.  Even the past few months ago we switched to Access 2013 via Office 365 and didn't have any issues.  It's only as I started to upgrade a few machines to Windows 10 that this problem started cropping up and it is only happening on the Windows 10 machines. 

Basically everything works fine until you let the computer sit idle for anywhere from 5-20 minutes and it will mysteriously disconnect itself.  The DB is a FE/BE DB.  I've tried running the FE DB locally and it still does it.  On my desktop, which I use for development, I tested by running various VM's w/Access 2003, 2013, etc.  The only one that disconnected was the Windows 10 VM running Access 2013.  We had a drive mapped to a SBS 2011 server and so I loaded up a new 2012 server and created a mapped drive to that to see if it was something w/Server 2008.  While it was just me doing development for a week on the new server I never had a disconnect.  So this past weekend I figured 2012 server must fix the problem and so I moved our DB to that server.  Now that everyone is on it, now the disconnects have come back, but again, only with the two machines running Windows 10.

I've looked at various options for power management on the NIC's, tried disabling everything possible related to that with no avail.  Nothing else gets disconnected and again, these are the exact same machines that running windows 7 and Access 2013 worked just fine for months/years.  The same Windows 10 machines don't disconnect from Remote desktop services or anything else, just a blip that seems to kill the access connection.

I don't know if it's some weird SMB problem or what, but if I can't get this figured out I'm going to have to go back to windows 7 because I can't have it constantly disconnecting throughout the day.

Answer 1

I believe the root problem is Windows 8 and Windows 10 now do asynchronous policy application.  The GPP drive mapping with the option of replace instead of update, which has it's own issues because it doesn't disconnect the drive if the GPP no longer applies, actually disconnects and reconnects the drive as part of GPP application every so often.  Windows 7 didn't do this.

For more info you can see these various articles...

https://community.spiceworks.com/topic/478226-gp-preferences-drive-mapping-with-replace-issue-on-windows-8-1

http://community.spiceworks.com/topic/489005-windows-8-1-drive-maps-disappearing

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc940895.aspx?f=255&MSPPError=-2147217396

http://www.grouppolicy.biz/2013/07/new-background-drive-mappings-in-windows-8-1/

Luckily we're small enough that Update works just fine and seems to have solved the problem so far.

Answer 2

I'm sure that would work, but as I said, changing the GPP mapping object to Update instead of Replace has taken care of the issue for us.  If I'd have tried this before it probably would have helped lead me to the root of the problem earlier.

As I said, I use a shared front end though, so I'd have to give a shortcut to a UNC path or teach the users to open it from a UNC path.  It's working fine now that Windows isn't disconnecting and reconnecting the drive as part of GPP, which I think is stupid as $#&*, but whatever.

Thanks, Travis.

Answer 3

Have you tried using UNC coding instead of a mapped drive?

Answer 4

I'm not making custom FEs and I already use a persistent connection on startup w/a global variable.

However, with my last post about 2 different things happening on the same workstation I believe I've got an idea on where the problem is coming from.  I think it's related to Group Policy preferences for the mapped drive on Windows 10 'reconnecting' the drive every so often.  The accounts that stayed connected were those that don't have the preference and I had manually mapped the drive.  The development I did all week and didn't get disconnected was on my account that has the preferences, but hte development was being done on a different drive manually mapped to a new server. 

So I put together several test scenarios when I was just there for lunch.  I have a feeling this will be the problem and I'll pursue that problem w/the Windows 10 or possibly server group once I can verify that's the problem that is happening.

Answer 5

Like I said, Access is sensitive to network fluctuations. So it could be a combination. I certinaly would try a local FE with a Persistent Connection set.

You really shouldn't be making custom FEs for users. But again, using an auto FE Updater make it easy. If you have to update the BE, then that needs to be taken down or code run in the FE to do it.