My dB goes corrupt after VPN access from home. How to avoid?

[Haff]

I'm using Access 2003. The dB is contained on a shared drive at work
w/multiple users updating it, many from home using VPN. Many evenings (when
users are active only from home), the dB becomes corrupt and I can't repair
it, but need to restore from a saved copy. Users then lose their daily data
entry. I've tried many tests to recreate corruption, but none seem to work
for me.
What is causing this and is there a way to avoid it? (One person suggested
that I break out the data onto the shared drive and copy "the rest" onto each
user's hard drive, but I still believe that it is VPN causing it.)
As a possible clue, the reports seem to work correctly at work, but often
don't work correctly at home thru VPN.

 

[M Skabialka]

I have had the same problem using VPN in the past, and breaking the database
into a front end and back end solved it. What you are dealing with is the
fact that you are opening a form that is on a distant server and if there is
a hiccup in the transmission of the form to your machine you corrupt it. If
you split the database and put the front on on each computer, linking to the
back end the only inforation crossing the ether is the data which is a much
smaller piece of information. The form is already on your machine so
doesn't need to be sent to you from the server. Our front end/back end
setup pretty much eliminated corruption and it was much faster (relatively
speaking!)

 

[Stefan Hoffmann]

hi,

What is causing this and is there a way to avoid it? (One person suggested
that I break out the data onto the shared drive and copy "the rest" onto each
user's hard drive,

Splitting a multi-user application into a local front-end and a shared
back-end is a must.

but I still believe that it is VPN causing it.)

This is possible. The VPN connection must not be reset (e.g. by idle
time) while working in your application as Access/Jet cannot handle this.


mfG
--> stefan <--

 

[Paul Shapiro]

Access will not usually be reliable across most VPN's, and performance is
usually very poor. Using Remote Desktop to connect to your work pc and
executing the app there will be drastically better for both reliability and
performance. If you have a Terminal Server available at work, that's another
great way to run an Access app remotely.

Separating the Access app into a backend db with just the tables and a
frontend db with forms, reports, queries, modules and links to the tables in
the backend will be a substantial improvement no matter how you are running
the app. Each user should be running their own local copy of the frontend
application, and the only shared part is the backend data on the server.