Opening reports causes report to open twice and produces errors

The softwa Access 2000 running under Windows 98.

The database: A monster exceeding half a gigabyte in size, mostly due to image files. Has about a dozen tables held together by enough relationship joins that the Relationship Manager can easily be mistaken for a bowl of linguine alfredo.

The problem: Opening reports using either Open Report in a macro or opening it from the Reports menu will often cause two copies of the report to appear on the taskbar, but only one copy of the report to appear onscreen. When this report is closed, one of the references to the report on the taskbar goes away while the other one stays. Attempting to maximize, minimize, close, or otherwise touch this phantom report produces the following error message:

Program error

MSACCESS.exe has generated errors and will be closed by Windows. You need to restart the program.

An error log is being created.

This usually will happen when opening particular reports with particular sets of data in them, but I have not found any pattern to when it occurrs. Sometimes a given set of querries and reports will cause this error, but when the same querries are used to generate the same report with different data, the error will not happen. Does anyone know what may be causing this or what patches and/or work-arounds may be possible?

On Mon, 28 Jun 2004 09:03:02 -0700, Matt the confused newbie Matt the
confused wrote:

The softwa Access 2000 running under Windows 98.

The database: A monster exceeding half a gigabyte in size, mostly due to image files. Has about a dozen tables held together by enough relationship joins that the Relationship Manager can easily be mistaken for a bowl of linguine alfredo.

Yum! Let's see: SELECT * FROM Ingredients WHERE IngredientName
IN("Garlic", "Cream", "Parmesean Cheese")...

The problem: Opening reports using either Open Report in a macro or opening it from the Reports menu will often cause two copies of the report to appear on the taskbar, but only one copy of the report to appear onscreen. When this report is closed, one of the references to the report on the taskbar goes away while the other one stays. Attempting to maximize, minimize, close, or otherwise touch this phantom report produces the following error message:

Program error

MSACCESS.exe has generated errors and will be closed by Windows. You need to restart the program.

An error log is being created.

Sounds like you may have some systems table corruption, or perhaps
timing issues. I take it that the same report with the same data will
sometimes work correctly, and other times duplicate?

I'd suggest (if you haven't done so) creating a new, empty database
and using File... Get External Data... Import to import everything.
This can clear up problems that a simple compact misses. Also check
Tony's Corruption FAQ at

http://www.granite.ab.ca/access/corruptmdbs.htm

for other possible causes and cures.

I'd also strongly recommend moving the pictures OUT of the database;
either store just the path and filename to external graphics files in
a text field, or store the image data in a BLOB in an OLE field,
programmatically, so Access doesn't add the bloating thumbnail images
and other overhead.

John W. Vinson[MVP]
Come for live chats every Tuesday and Thursday
http://go.compuserve.com/msdevapps?loc=us&access=public

Thank you for your response. Here is a bit more info I've discovered about the problem.

"John Vinson" wrote:

Sounds like you may have some systems table corruption, or perhaps
timing issues. I take it that the same report with the same data will
sometimes work correctly, and other times duplicate?

No, as it turns out the errors are a bit more predictable. The same report with the same data will, it appears, always get the same results. The problem appears to be somehow associated with the pictures. There are two pictures on each page of the report, and deleting both (but not one or the other) from the report will completely prevent the problem from reoccurring. The problem is that particular report's pretty much useless without the pictures. Other sets of reports that do not use the OLE images do not have any problems.

Interestingly, the problem does not appear to lie with any particular image. I have constructed one querry to show a report with several pages and another querry to show a report that is copied from the other one, but displays only one page. There are incedents where displaying a group of pages will not cause the error, but displaying one of the pages on its own will trigger the error.

I'd suggest (if you haven't done so) creating a new, empty database
and using File... Get External Data... Import to import everything.
This can clear up problems that a simple compact misses. Also check
Tony's Corruption FAQ at

Thank you. I hadn't tried that, but now that I have tried it the new database suffers from the exact same problem.

http://www.granite.ab.ca/access/corruptmdbs.htm

for other possible causes and cures.

Thank you for the link. I'll need to take a closer look at the site.

I'd also strongly recommend moving the pictures OUT of the database;
either store just the path and filename to external graphics files in
a text field, or store the image data in a BLOB in an OLE field,
programmatically, so Access doesn't add the bloating thumbnail images
and other overhead.

John W. Vinson[MVP]
Come for live chats every Tuesday and Thursday
http://go.compuserve.com/msdevapps?loc=us&access=public

Thank you for that suggestion; unfortunately, my understanding is that there is no way to store just the path name and not the image without using VBA. And I have no idea how to use VBA whatsoever. It does appear the pictures are at fault, however, so maybe I'll have to learn VBA and move the pictures out of the database. Crazy that the first time I try to create an Access database, I have to deal with things like this already...

Matt

We have lots of reports with 2 OLE bitmaps, was A97 on Win98, is A2K on
Win2K.
But they are always small bitmaps on single page reports.

But I've always found the OLE tended to get flaky whenever you did anything
big
and slow - I suspected some kind of timing issue in the OLE services code.
It's
only less of a problem now because Windows is bigger and faster.

In any case: Turn OFF your AV software while you test this. AV software
makes
ANY big program/file flaky. Experiment with different image formats.
Experiment
with different image programs (you probably have a couple of different OLE
servers installed that you can use to view jpgs for example).

(david)

"Matt the confused newbie" Matt the confused
wrote in message
...
The softwa Access 2000 running under Windows 98.

The database: A monster exceeding half a gigabyte in size, mostly due to
image files. Has about a dozen tables held together by enough relationship
joins that the Relationship Manager can easily be mistaken for a bowl of
linguine alfredo.

The problem: Opening reports using either Open Report in a macro or
opening it from the Reports menu will often cause two copies of the report
to appear on the taskbar, but only one copy of the report to appear
onscreen. When this report is closed, one of the references to the report on
the taskbar goes away while the other one stays. Attempting to maximize,
minimize, close, or otherwise touch this phantom report produces the
following error message:

Program error

MSACCESS.exe has generated errors and will be closed by Windows. You need
to restart the program.

An error log is being created.

This usually will happen when opening particular reports with particular
sets of data in them, but I have not found any pattern to when it occurrs.
Sometimes a given set of querries and reports will cause this error, but
when the same querries are used to generate the same report with different
data, the error will not happen. Does anyone know what may be causing this
or what patches and/or work-arounds may be possible?

Thank you for responding.

"david epsom dot com dot au" wrote:

We have lots of reports with 2 OLE bitmaps, was A97 on Win98, is A2K on
Win2K.
But they are always small bitmaps on single page reports.


Incedently, my OS is Windows 2000 Professional, not 98. Sorry about the mix-up.


In any case: Turn OFF your AV software while you test this. AV software
makes
ANY big program/file flaky.

Thanks for the suggestion, but turning off the antivirus software did not seem to help.

Experiment with different image formats.
Experiment
with different image programs (you probably have a couple of different OLE
servers installed that you can use to view jpgs for example).

(david)

Well, I did find that replacing the linked images on the problem reports with embedded ones seemed to make the reports come up OK. The images are a mixture of JPEGs for digital photos and GIFs for line drawings - there's usually one of each on every page. Guess I may have to go through every report that's been having problems and change the images from linked to embedded.

I wasn't able to view the images at all until I installed the Photo Editor that comes with Office. What is an OLE server, anyway?

Matt

If you are using static images, convert them all to bitmaps, and
use an Image control instead of linking/embedding. Access
renders images natively -- and those linked jpgs included an
embedded bmp image in the database anyway.

"Matt the confused newbie"
wrote in message ...
Thank you for responding.

"david epsom dot com dot au" wrote:

We have lots of reports with 2 OLE bitmaps, was A97 on Win98, is A2K on
Win2K.
But they are always small bitmaps on single page reports.


Incedently, my OS is Windows 2000 Professional, not 98. Sorry about the
mix-up.


In any case: Turn OFF your AV software while you test this. AV software
makes
ANY big program/file flaky.

Thanks for the suggestion, but turning off the antivirus software did not
seem to help.

Experiment with different image formats.
Experiment
with different image programs (you probably have a couple of different
OLE
servers installed that you can use to view jpgs for example).

(david)

Well, I did find that replacing the linked images on the problem reports
with embedded ones seemed to make the reports come up OK. The images are a
mixture of JPEGs for digital photos and GIFs for line drawings - there's
usually one of each on every page. Guess I may have to go through every
report that's been having problems and change the images from linked to
embedded.

I wasn't able to view the images at all until I installed the Photo Editor
that comes with Office. What is an OLE server, anyway?

Matt

"david epsom dot com dot au" wrote:

If you are using static images, convert them all to bitmaps, and
use an Image control instead of linking/embedding. Access
renders images natively -- and those linked jpgs included an
embedded bmp image in the database anyway.


Thanks, but I think these aren't static images. They are images meant to be inserted and updated as data is entered into the database. I presume a static image is one that's the same for every record, but I don't know for sure. The Help file and the manual I've been using do not really explain the concept of a static image. I just know that using the Image Control doesn't seem to have an obvious means of accessing data that is stored in a table, and I need to keep either the images or enough information for the computer to find them stored in a table.

You're probably wondering how somebody who doesn't know what an OLE server or a static image got placed in charge of such a large, complicated database. Me too...

Matt

Thanks to all who responded, the database is fixed now. I wound up going through the table with the pictures on it, copying every picture, then using Paste Special and specifying it be pasted in as an embedded picture instead of a Microsoft Photo Editor file. Then I compacted the database and it shrank to about half its original size. The error messages are gone. Thanks to all who responded.

Matt