NetWare network, Access/Office 2KPro - database access issue

Hey PsiCop!

  Your network permissions for the share need to be set to FULL.  No special permissions need to be set on the mdb

  The LDB is the Locking Database that Access creates on the fly to track MDB usage and logons.
  This file should not be included in any permissioning as Access tries to remove it when it is no longer needed.

regards
Jack

Hi PsiCop,

Set the default opening method to shared access in the clients Access setup

Kind regards,
Sven

Access was designed for multi-user access, BUT it is not like a true database SERVER.  It is only a database CONTAINER.

BTW, - I believe that if you:

1. open a db for exclusive access
2. close it
3. open it from Menu: Files > Recent Files

Then Access will remeber that it was opened exclusively and try to do it again, regardless of Access's general settings ?

Sven

Fast replies....thanks.

jade, you said "Your network permissions for the share need to be set to FULL.  No special permissions need to be set on the mdb". I thought I was quite clear that the network environment is NetWare, not Windows. There are no "shares", nor is there a permission called "FULL". As it is, the users already have what's generally, in NetWare parlance, considered "full permissions" in the directory where the database file is located (i.e. [ RWECMF ], or Read, Write, Erase, Create, Modify and Filescan).

sven, I'm not the programmer who wrote all this, just the network engineer stuck trying to debug it. Can you be more specific about HOW the default opening method is changed?

ok so do that.  I'm an Access Programmer, not a Network guy.  I let the network gurus figure that out.  I can only put thing down in terminology I'm familiar with.
sorry...

Are all the users opening the same copy of the database or is the database a "split" type with a FrontEnd and BackEnd?

All users are opening the same copy of the database. The .MDB file is residing on a NetWare v6.5 server.

I also discovered that the version of Access in use is Access '97, not 2000 as I had previously understood.

Depending on what actions take place in the code of the application I expect you may be seeing more of the same errors.

In a shared data setting, each user should have their own copy of an interface to that data.
This is especially true if the interface caches setting in the application that are specific to a user session.

Is there an interface (forms/reports/querys/filters) that this MDB uses to control user access/movement in the DB?

"Is there an interface (forms/reports/querys/filters) that this MDB uses to control user access/movement in the DB? "

I honestly have no idea. The guy who wrote it is in a city 300 miles away and he's not available for me to question right now.
I will relay your concern, tho.

"Set the default opening method to shared access in the clients Access setup"

They were already set to Shared access. The location is Tools --> Options --> Advanced.

I think we have found the answer. We needed to change two settings on the NetWare v6.5 server:

SET CLIENT FILE CACHING ENABLED=OFF
SET LEVEL 2 OPLOCKS ENABLED=OFF

This turned off opportunistic locking on the server, and also disabled client-side file caching (server-side file caching remains). Once we turned these things off, we got 3 people into the database without any errors.

I'm not sure if flagging the file as Shareable has any effect. I'm tending to think not, but the users are working, and I'm loathe to experiment more.

We figgered it out when the programmer mentioned that the problem started after the server had been upgraded to new hardware and the latest version of NetWare. By default, for performance reasons, NetWare allows opportunistic file locking and client-side file caching - Access evidently doesn't like these things. Once they were both turned off, it appears to have started working again.

I'm going to wait a few days and verify the fix before coding those changes into the server's AUTOEXEC.NCF file (so the changes are documented and made permanent for when we reboot the server in a year or so).

PsiCop,

good on'yer! As long as you get a solution, - eh! ( you DID make a note in the Server Change Control Log, I'm sure!)

Sorry about being so rusty with NetWare, - it's been a couple of years since I had steady jobs with that stuff.

Regards & good luck,
Sven

I was just trolling along watching ... I now have forwarded this link to the network engineers as I believe that they are planning a project to upgrade our Novell servers ... Thanks very much.

Steve

Stevbe, you're welcome.

sven, thanks for helping. We like NetWare - no BSODs, no worrying about NIMDA, CodeRed, BackOrifice. no late-night patching parties. Reliable, fast, good security, and doesn't cost an arm and a leg.

PsiCop,

Just like I feel about my Linux Servers ;-)

Sven

And my Solaris ones too. :-) I'm looking forward to Novell implementing NetWare services on the Linux kernel.

Bit of followup on this. The problem recurred in another location on the opposite side of the state. It turns out that flagging the file as Shareable IS necessary. So its 3 parts to the solution:

1) Turn off client-side file caching
2) Turn off opportunistic locking
3) Flag file as Shareable

We also moved from NetWare Traditional (FAT) filesystem to Novell Storage Services (NSS) when the server was swapped out - I'm not 100% sure if that had any effect, as NSS handles files slightly differently than FAT (and a lot faster).

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Whoops! Sorry - totally forgot about this one. I'll grade and close it.

Well, actually, looking at it, I see I Answered my own Question. I'll put in for a refund.

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