The Linear Canvas

I got a call one afternoon at work recently that the Access database application that I had built for invoice and production tracking would not work. Since I knew that they were going to replace our file server and several of the desktops, it was no surprise to me. The previous workstations had only Access 2002 Runtime installed on them. The new computers had a full version of Access 2003 installed. The IT tech told me that they kept making a shortcut to the application on a new workstation and nothing had worked.

It had been a few months since I had worked on the database, so I was a little rusty at troubleshooting the problem at first. After looking at it for a few minutes, I inquired about the name of the new server computer, The tech said that the name of the server had changed,

That was part of my problem. The Link Table Manager showed all tables that were in the application backend on a computer called columbus31a. The files were copied to the new file server called columbus-931. All I had to do was update all the network paths to reflect the name of the new server in the application frontend’s Link Table Manager. I had to update a few links, for some reason, all by themselves. When I would select all links at once and update,  the process would stop.

When I used the database while testing the new path to the server, I noticed that the application told me right up front that I had read-only access to the data. Thinking that it was some kind of one time thing, I just blew it off. The next day one of my co-workers came to me and told me that he couldn’t add any records to the database. He said it was telling him he had read-only access.

I was able to log-in as an administrator on the server. I then checked all local and network access rights to the folder. All checked out. After testing some of the settings and failing to make any difference, I decided to create a new folder on the server and copy all the files into it. I had to go back into the Link Table Manager and update the path to the backend with the new folder name again. This time the Link Table Manager allowed me to update all of them at once. When I opened the application frontend, everything worked. I now had full access to the data.

I am not sure what caused the folder to be in fact read-only although its properties said otherwise. I also couldn’t delete the old folder after I copied the files from it, although I was logged in as an administrator. I am not an IT tech, although I am A+ certified. I’m a bit network rusty too. If you don’t use it, you lose it. All I can say is that maybe because the folder was created by the IT tech, maybe he could delete it. It doesn’t hurt anything, so I’ll just leave it alone and forget about it.