Very strange Access database access across network

[McGraw]

Yesterday, all but one of the PCs in our office became unable to access the Access db on our server.

The symptoms are a long period of inactivity followed by an Access "Disk or Network Error".

The db works fine on the server itself and on the machine that can access it.

I have done MS Office/Access repairs on the host and client machines.

The problem machines can all happily access other Office documents across the network, just not Access db's.

Internet and network connectivity is absolutely fine in all other respects.

The only clue I have to the cause is this:

Yesterday, the back of our office seemed to be struck by lightning and our UPS kicked in and all our telephone and networking systems rebooted.

The pcs seemed to have a lot of connectivity problems until I checked the cabling and rebooted everything.

I don't however see how everything can be fine apart form accessing one particular file type.

Thanks very much.

[gazzae]

Are there linked tables in the DB?

I've seen error this before where the database has a linked table to another DB on a mapped drive and the error occoured when the mapping was lost.

[McGraw]

I think you are on the right lines.

Just asked one of the lads to try again and a windows speech bubble appeared stating:

"Windows was unable to save all the data for the file \\*******.ldb. The data has been lost. This error may be caused by a failure of your computer hardware or network connection. Please try to save this file elsewhere."

This makes sense now as the unaffected computer was off when the lightning struck.

Thanks.

---------- Post added at 11:19 ---------- Previous post was at 11:04 ----------

Any further clues anyone?

[gazzae]

Try this in regards to the second error message you get.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/321733

[McGraw]

Update: It's definitely a problem with the clients and not the server or database itself.

[grandmaster]

We get this ocassionaly.

usually we get all the users to log out of the database and that clears it.

If that fails we delete the locking file and repair and compact the database and that fixes it.

[McGraw]

Ok, I'll try that. Cheers.

how big are the tables (rows) and how many people access (with a small a) them concurrently?

[McGraw]

Without dodging your question, I don't think it has anything to do with that.

The reason I say this is that I have now created a test database on the server and it can only be accessed by pcs that were turned of at the time off the incident.

I'm a bit puzzled to say the least.

[McGraw]

Any ideas anyone?

Cheers.

[Tightscot]

you could put a second Network card into one of the duff machines, disable the original card, enable and configure the new card and the test. This would rule out a fried card due to lightning?

phew - long winded and a long shot but may help?

[McGraw]

It's definitely not a hardware problem.