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

Thanks so much for this posting. Your scenario was identical to mine in every aspect with one exception, my users run a local FE. I have been programming with Access DB's since 1997 and have developed many different solutions for a variety of companies/situations. Most times I have been able to work out any issues, but this one had me stumped. Your postings were great and my Windows 10 users are equally pleased. Thanks for sharing!

Answer 3

The exact message is the title, but the full message is...

Your network access was interrupted. To continue close the database and then open it again.

Sometimes you'd get slightly different messages, but most of the time it was this one.

Thanks Tom for marking the answer.  I wasn't able to mark my own.  :)

I had about 5 copies opened overnight and no disconnects since switching the GPP policy to update instead of replace.  Yay!  Didn't run into the problem sooner because we avoided Windows 8, which would exhibit the same problem.

P.S. One last note is it wasn't just when the application was idle.  I actually had a user get disconnected while he was actually editing a record shortly before we discovered the solution.  It's just a matter of what they are doing when GPP gets re-applied.

Answer 4

Excellent work! It may even apply to a situation we have in our network where we sometimes lose connectivity to a mapped drive.

For future reference, can you please quote the error message you were getting verbatim? This is how people would likely search this forum and find your solution.