Access 2016 - Cant Save Database - Database Already Open by myself

[DaveLembke]

Curious if anyone has worked with Access 2016 and ran into this issue and know a solution for it.

On multiple computers including the college computer on the college network I get this error and it seems like its happening more frequent now that I am making forms with subforms and querys. Each time this happens I lose all my work and I have to start over.

I have been making it a habit to save my work every time I make a change, but the frequency of this issue has increased with more complex databases and having to do stuff 3 or 4 times to make progress on college work spending 30 minutes to get one what should be done in 10 minutes had me just short of throwing my laptop against the wall. But I know its not the computers fault its Access 2016 which I cant say how I really feel about that software here. 

Attached is a screenshot of the error I get. The HELP option that sends you to Microsoft is WORTHLESS!!!  Looking on Google for suggestions to fix this issue have been failure after failure, so I figured I'd check here to see if anyone knows of a solution to this.

No other computers are running Access 2016 and the database is not open anywhere else, additionally looking in task manager there are no duplicate instances of Access 2016 running. Some things I have tried including some on google was to put computer in sleep mode and hibernation mode to which upon it coming back online from these states it would reconnect the licensing handshake with Microsoft as well as maybe it will no longer think its in use by someone else on the same computer.

I will create my tables and either successfully save the database or have failure. If failure start all over again, if success create querys. If it fails when saving after querys created then close Access 2016 and load the last successful save. If it saves successfully then move on to forms if it fails to save then, then close Access 2016 and load the last successful save. If it saves at this point move forward with more work on the database.    And it seriously can take 30 minutes to get what should be done in 10 minutes completed because I have to fight it out with Access 2016. 

Heading to college tomorrow and work that needs to be completed isnt completed because I keep hitting this error over and over again and instead of it being called Microsoft Access 2016 it should be Microsoft Definition of Insanity 2016   

[BC_Programmer]

Do you have any VBA code? If you are opening database connections in your VBA code and you aren't closing them I'd expect this to happen. If you are doing anyt sort of importing to another application like Excel or whatever then it would be accessing the database- similarly it would need to close it when completed, or you'll get this error trying to save the access database.

It can also happen with Certain Macros. Specifically when you have any macros or functions assigned to run when saving or opening the database.

[DaveLembke]

Hello BC ... No code or macros. Just having like 5 tables with 2 pretty simple querys, and a single form with nothing special in it is enough to cause this issue.

I had the issue happen again and I set the laptop to hibernate so that I can troubleshoot it further vs having to wait for the error condition to dig further into it.

[DaveLembke]

Ok an update to this... found a strange work around.

So the lock file seems to think that the database is in use by someone else when it isnt.

Was messing around with this issue in class today at college. I saved the issue by telling laptop to hibernate. And professor and I worked on this together to figure out a fix. We looked at the file properties of the lock file and it was last time stamped yesterday. Trying to save as still gave same error. Save option wasnt working. However when I clicked on a Table the save option went from grayed out in upper left to white. Clicked on save and looked in the folder and it saved the database with time stamp changing to know that it saved it. Tried to save as and still same error, however exiting Access 2016 and then going back into Access 2016, I now was able to open the database that previously I kept losing because when I had the lock file error I wasnt able to save and I would exit out of Access 2016 and lose it.

So the strange work around is that when SAVE AS runs into this lock file issue. Click on a table to open to view that table. Then the Save Icon upper left corner of Access 2016 window will show as white ( active to select ). Click on this Save Option and look in the folder where your database is and you should see the date/time stamp then be recent to when you clicked save. Exit Access 2016 and then go back into it either buy launching Access 2016 and then telling it to open the database or double-click on the database file and it will load and then no data loss.

  Strange issue but at least now I have a means of saving my database vs losing all my work each time this error pops up. 

Maybe someone else will find this info useful and no lose their database/work performed in it. 

So the issue is that SAVE AS has an issue at times, but this work around allows you to save to the last file name the database was opened or created under. I generally have been using SAVE AS and adding a number to end of the file name to keep track of what version I am at as well as have the ability to revert back to an earlier state if needed which seemed to run into troubles, and this work around gives the ability to save the database, however instead of saving a Rev 6, its saving it overtop of the last Rev 5 because you cant SAVE AS once this issue is met. And only ability to save is introduced when opening a table so the database thinks there is now a change to save, in which SAVE will work now, but trying to SAVE AS a different file name is an endless loop of failure which is where I use to be until finding this work around to data loss!!