Phantom Access Instance (Access2000)

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Has this happened to anyone else? You double-click on a .mdb file in Windows Explorer and nothing happens. If you open Windows Task Manager and look on Processes tab, there is an instance of Access running; but there is no entry on the Applications tab in Task Manager, nor is there anything on the Windows TaskBar. If you delete this process, you can open the .mdb with no problems. It is as if the last instance of Access didn’t properly close.

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The invisible instance is probably left over from a previous session. Possible causes:
a) You started an instance of Access using Automation. This instance failed to be closed properly.
or
During the previous Access session, an object hasn’t been set to nothing (in particular, an ADO or DAO object).

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I know that it wasn’t because of opening Access via Automation.

I suppose it could be because I missed setting an object to nothing, although I’m usually pretty good at doing that. Thing is, I can’t discern a pattern for when it happens.

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It can be pretty tough to discover the exact cause of problems like this. You might keep Task Manager open, and check the Processes tab before opening a database and after closing it.

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I’ve run into this many times, Mark. One culprit that often gets overlooked is code that treats the value of a checkbox or toggle button as an implicit boolean, like

If Me.chkWhatever Then

. If you use a naming convention for controls, you can search through all instances of “If Me.chk” and make sure all those conditions are written like this:

If Me.chkWhatever = True Then

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I think I’m getting a headache! I thought that the “if chkbox then” was the preferred method, for some reason I can’t remember. I assume, then, that this also applies when using IIF; so rather than IIF(chkBox,…,…), you should use IIF(chkBox = True, …, …)?

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Definitely.

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Never in Access however same symptom happens often in Outlook 2000 without knowing why, just an annoyance, once I End Task on Outlook.exe, desired instance of OL opens.

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Do you use Word as mail editor in Outlook?

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Yes I do

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That’s probably the explanation. All kinds of strange things happen if you use Word as mail editor. At the moment, you can still choose not to, unfortunately, we’ll all be forced to use Word as mail editor in Office 2007.

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Thanks for the explanation, its worth the annoyance once in a while to continue using Word

John

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“unfortunately, we’ll all be forced to use Word as mail editor in Office 2007”
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Is this only if you use Outlook, or do they have a way of forcing all of us to do it?

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I meant in Outlook. It doesn’t apply if you use another mail client, such as Thunderbird.

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