Ok, here's the background. We are o

[chromarog]

Ok, here's the background. We are on a large Novell Network with multiple mapped drives etc etc. We have a bagillion files on the network. Now.. Access databases seem to be having trouble.

When a user opens up an Access database, the LDB file is created with info of who is opening the file, among other things, right in the directory the database resides in. When the database is closed the file deletes itself. For some reason the files are not deleting and this ultimately leads to an "unrecognized file format" error message. The database is then corrupted and needs to be restored. The details are a bit sketchy on the events the lead right up to the crash and MS and Novell are not really revealing much about or not much is know at this problem. Now no-one can confirm that the LDB file is causing the unrecognized file format error, AND no-one can confirm that the file is even there 100% of the time when it happens, but it has been noted in most of the cases that they have looked.

Any related experience with such an issue would be hot. Patches:
Novell 3.31 on 95/98 machines
Novell 4.81 on 2k machines
Office 2k SP1
Novell Servers are 5.1 with SP3 and SP5. There have been problems with this on both servers.

The client has file caching turned on in netware properties due to the network admins don't want the users to have a performance hit. The databases are multiuser databases.

Any help with this would be great. I don't see too much in the way of forums here about Novell so I hope that I haven't broken an unwritten rule about posting a problem with it here. I am merely a helpdesk frontline of defense that takes heat from users with little or no information from the admins or developers. I'm sniffing out the problem in the interest of helping the user.

Thanks,
Rog..

 

[chromarog]

Oops, forgot to put a subject line and it took the first words of the problem description.

I apologize for the confusion.

Rog..

 

[apex1x]

Actually, there are novell netware forums.
5.1 is at:
forum75

~Apex1x
Miller's Law:
You can't tell how deep a puddle is until you step into it.

 

[JimInKS]

Don't have experience with Novell, but.

Multi-user access databases tend to be pretty sensitive, and can be easily corrupted. The ldb file, is as you stated, used for multi-user access. While these should be deleted when the last user logs off, that is not what is causing the "unrecognized file format" error. This error simply means that the mdb file is corrupt.

It sounds like access files are not being closed/locked correctly. Your statement about caching being on makes me suspicious. For multi-user access, caching gets much more complicated. Is the novell cache management smart enough to handle this?

 

[Dreamboat]

Jim is right, but I'd like to explain something he said.

LDB files are temporarily created when a DB is shared. When everyone is out of the DB, the LDB file should *go away* (not be deleted).

However, if it is NOT going away by itself, you should delete any that remain. If it regularly does not go away, then there is definitely a problem.

I just wanted to make sure you understood that you should not have to delete an LDB file all the time... Anne Troy

http://www.TheOfficeExperts.com

 

[chromarog]

So the LDB not going away or deleting would or should not be causing any kind of corruption?

Most of the users I support have a really difficult time with the concept of directory structures, so trying to get them to go in a manually delete these files with short circuit most of them.

I'm on my way out the door now and can't take care of this but I'll post to the novell board about this. Thanks Apex.

Rog

 

[Dreamboat]

It does not CAUSE corruption, but could be an indicator of existing corruption.

They should not have to manually delete them. If this were my database...

I would get everyone out of it, copy it to my hard drive, run a compact and repair on it. Delete any existing LDB files on the server, and put the DB back onto the server and see how it goes... Anne Troy

http://www.TheOfficeExperts.com

 

[chromarog]

One of our users was logging out of her machine before the database got a chance to completely close. Long network route due to locations and servers, anyway, thats one of the handful of problems so it doesn't really sit well with me. I can say pretty assuredly that this is not the problem with most of the database users.

Most of the time the compact and repair is a viable option but most of the users just want a backup restored from the nightly backup.

But I do thank the input, I'm passing all this along to my cronies on the helpdesk here.

Rog