Can't Open DB. My fault?

[Jaybird]

We have an Access application running on about 10 PCs from a server. This
morning no one could enter the system. When trying to open an app this error
message appeared: "This database is in an unexpected state; Microsoft Access
can't open it." It goes on to say that the database is in a partially
converted state and that someone used the wrong method to convert it. I
managed to open it with the conversion tool from the menu, however, I wanted
to know what could have caused this? I doubt very much that the order entry
users were using the DAO CompactDatabase method that the error message
suggests, so I was wondering if some coding I was attempting to do could have
been the cause. I made a change to the code on a form and attempted to save
it while there were other users on the system. I was unsuccessful, but soon
afterward this error occurred.

 

[Jerry Whittle]

It could have happened while you were coding the form. Newer versions of
Access will not all someone to make a design change while others are using
the database. You need to kick everyone off first, or better yet, split the
database and make changes using a development copy of the DB.

Other than that, does anyone have a newer version of Access than the current
database? If the .mdb file is Access 2000 format, someone might have tried to
convert it to Access 2003 or 2007.

Were I you, I'd be making nightly backups until I found the root cause of
the problem.

 

[Jaybird]

Thanks. I was afraid of that. It was simply an experiment that didn't pay
off. I wish I could get them to split the DB into front and back ends. I
could do all kinds of neat stuff then!