Database in inconsistent state

Question

I have an Access 2016 database on a server which has between 5-10 people using it at a single time. However ONE user and ONE user only keeps killing the database and getting the message "Microsoft Access has detected that this database is in an inconsistent state, and will attempt to recover the database....".

A compact and repair fixes the issue but it is becoming a pain as this can happen up to 10 times in a single day ... and then not for 3 weeks. The coding is correct as it works for ALL other users and generally for this one user, until their computer has a bad day and then it will happen each time they try and enter data.

Yes, the database is split and each user opens from a FE on their own C drive, with the BE being on the office server.

Any tips? As our IT departments swears blind that it isn't a hardware / computer issue and all users have all patches and up to date software.

Answer 1

Officially, Microsoft doesn't seem to know. 

Right now we are simply trying workarounds.  So you'll need to try either of the recommended workaround and see if either of them solves the issue for you.  Please report back as it will help others.

As for me, I never found a solution that worked. We have given the user a new computer and are currently trying that out.

My $0.02 is that it is a network problem either caused by this user sitting in the furthest desk from the server or an intermittent hardware problem.

But again, this only happens in Win 10 and the user operated fine in Win 7 in the same DB for about 3 years before this issue arose.

Answer 2

We are experiencing the same problem for the past 3 weeks about.

I tried restoring backups from January but still get the "inconistent state" then have to repair constantly now.

Have some new PC's running Windows 10 and all the PC's have been updated to Office/Access 2016 in the past few weeks.

Have not been able to identify a specific PC but know when the "floor" computers in the factory enter data then the office person attempts to run a report she gets the same error.  If they run the database (fe and be) locally they have no problem but it defeats the purpose of shared data.

Has anyone found more specifically what the issue is?

Has anyone tried rolling back to Access 2007?

thanks, JR

Answer 3

It very well could be a network issue - if the computer cannot communicate reliably with the backend you'll get this kind of symptom. Unfortunately, network error sniffing is... well, NOT fun. Good luck!

Answer 4

@Mike,

Thanks for the reply.

Actually this user is on a brand new computer. We have about 100 computers in the office (not all DB users) and just got in 10 new computer running Win 10. One of these is giving me grief and the IT dept swear that it isn't a computer issue.

Me think i need to put my foot down and get them to swap out the computer with a non DB user and see if it makes a difference.

All computers run Windows (mix of 7 and 10) 64 bit with 32 bit office. so not sure if there is an issue there.

Answer 5

Put that user on a spare computer.

Or swap two users, if there is no spare (Dell has spares for $600).

99% chance that there is one bad computer, and the misery will follow that computer rather than that user. Then it is time to replace or rebuild it.