Shared MDB files are failing to load on one machine in a p2p network (looking for diag suggestions)

[bxdobs]

10 machines in a Peer-to-Peer Network with a mixture of W10 and W7 OS's, Office Pro 2003, 2016, 2019 all running 2 application MDB files (with split BE MDB data files) All but one machine can run both of these applications over the local network ... this one machine running Office Pro 2016 (32bit) has recently begun failing to load and run either of these MDB files or their data BE files

So far:
- attempted to load these files using the SHIFT key load option (so the apps don't start running) with the plan to do a compact/repair
- did a full Office Pro Repair on this machine (nothing reported)
- sfc /scannow (no issues found)
- virus scans using MS Security Essentials as well as Malwarebytes (nothing found)
- this Machine can ping the Peer Server
- the Peer Server can ping this Machine
- this Machine can run ACCDB apps located on the Peer Server
- did a forced compact/repair on both apps and their back end data files from the Peer Server ... attempts to do this from the machine having issues failed

basically any time these MDB files are opened on this Machine, ACCESS goes into a NOT RESPONDING mode.

Although these 10+ year-old apps have had recent minor cosmetic changes, because the other WX 2016 and WX 2019 machines don't have any issue running these apps, from my perspective, this suggests something external to these apps is causing this issue on this machine. Just haven't determined what and run out things to try

The event viewer states there are application errors relating to Access but not sure if these errors are related to the issue or my having taken down these programs with brute force by KILLING them from the Task Manager.

Machines
1 - WX 2016
2 - W7 2003 Peer Server
3 - WX 2016
4 - WX 2016 having issues unable to run these apps
5 - WX 2016
6 - WX 201
7 - WX 2016


8 - WX 2019
9 - WX 2019
10 - W7 2003 Stand-in Front Counter Machine
11 - W7 2003 Offsite Managerial Machine

Machines 1,3,4,5,6, and 7 were purchased at the same time so they all are running exactly the same HW and SW ... all have the same updates ... machines 8 and 9 were added over the last 2 years ... machine 10 was resurrected in the last year as a stand-in Front Counter machine ... the Peer Server is running an ADMIN MDB process written in Access 2003 which monitors an external ODBC SQL DB for crucial updates to these 2 apps ... an additional offsite Machine (W7 2003) can also reach in via VPN to access these apps ... The three W7 Machines with OFP 2003 licenses dictate the reason these apps are still in MDB format

If this were a PEER machine count overload, my experience is that PEER machines would randomly have issues (it has been well over a decade that I bumped the Buffering on the PEER Server to allow for more PEER machine connections not sure where my notes are on that registry change) ... being this issue is with the SAME machine and only this machine just doesn't flow with the early PEER issues we had many years back.

The MDB Apps are MATURE they have been working for over 10 years and even with some recent cosmetic changes still work on every machine BUT this one. If it isn't clear from my rambling, these APPS did and have worked on this machine.

Any thoughts on what else I can try?

Perhaps do a dump reload of all the app objects into a fresh MDB file?

Appears Access knows it has had issues with these files on this machine, not sure where that history is being stored, in some internal/local log OR if this is information is stored in the mdb files. Is there any way to forcibly reset this History?

[isladogs]

Does the affected machine open other MDB files without problems?
If the answer is Yes...
The problem is with this specific MDB only which may be corrupted in some way or may have missing references on that machine (check that first)
If references are OK first make a backup then open Access using the /DECOMIPLE switch and load your MDB file if possible. This will remove all compilation code. Now compile from the debug menu and compact.
If that fails, try importing all objects into a new blank database or copy a working version of the MDB from another machine

However if the answer to the original question is No, then repair or reinstall Office

[bxdobs]

Thanks for the feedback.

The answer is yes we have other MDB shared files and they do open (they are located on the same shared drive and folder with FE and BE files)

One of the original things done was an OFFICE REPAIR INSTALL

What I have just done is copy both FE and BE MDB files to this machine ... opened both of them and did a compact/repair ... moved the previous versions on the Peer Server to a Backup folder then copied back the FE and BE MDB files back to the Peer Server ... upon opening the app file the first item is the warning that there was an error opening last time asking if I wish to continue opening the file ... when I reply with a yes, Access goes into a "Not Responding" mode which took forever to get to the login Form ... once logged in, it then errors out stating it can't find the BE MDB file ... the BE file is in the same shared folder in the same mapped drive as the application file. I also ran the copy of the app from this machine and it immediately ran the Login Form but also stated it couldn't find the BE file

Again I must reiterate that these applications were working on this machine ... and ... currently work fine on all the other machines, and, most notably, the other like machines (thinking like machines should rule out reference issues) ... the missing BE condition was seen and dismissed early in my diags ... because of the time it took to get to that point, I was aborting the process with a Forced Kill from the Task Manager (hard to run extended diags like this on a LIVE machine) ... with everyone now gone home, these tests are currently the only activity on the network.

This new result is even more confusing in that there are other MDB apps with FE and BE files on the same Mapped Drive and Folder that are working fine on this machine whereas these 2 key MDB apps are experiencing issues.

[Welshgasman]

Any Windows updates recently?

[bxdobs]

Took a step back, the Missing BE file was actually due to my unmentioned step of removing and adding back the Mapped Drive with a subtle typo ... after fixing this typo I am back to square one ... however ... instead of forcing a Kill App, I allowed/waited for the startup process to complete and although it has actually now run successfully 3 times, there is actually some kind of major delay going on ... the Login Form is taking more than 2 minutes to load ... the Login Form communicates with an Admin Process running on the Peer Server to determine if it's application flag is set to Active (Admin controls when an application is active to allow for program updates/changes) ... the entire login process typically takes less than five seconds to complete ... ping times both ways are 1mS ... this Machine has single digit CPU usage and plenty of available RAM ... so need to rephrase the ISSUE ... for some unknown reason this machine appears to be taking forever to communicate with another MDB file running on the server.

[bxdobs]

MS WX has been doing major updates weekly for several months (this week was the first week I haven't had to do updates requiring reboots in what seems like forever) ... there are 6 identical machines with the same updates so hard to point the finger at updates ... now that I am not bumping in to LIVE activity on this machine, this issue actually appears to be related to some kind of delay in communications and NOT a failure to load as the app does eventually load if I wait long enough (2+ minutes). A table in the BE Admin MDB is linked to the Application attempting to load all it needs to do is run a simple query on a table with less then 10 records to determine if it can run. Why should this take 2+ minutes on only one machine?

[isladogs]

Have you tried the things I suggested in post #2 on the machine that doesn't work?
Check references, decompile etc and if that doesn't help import into new database

[bxdobs]

Have you tried the things I suggested in post #2 on the machine that doesn't work?
Check references, decompile etc and if that doesn't help import into new database

Yes no change ... Spent some time researching SLOW WX LAN CONNECTIONS ... this machine has a Gb Network Card and is wired to a Gb Switch to a Gb Router ... using this machine and a like machine I connected to the same Mapped Drive and started a file search on both machines ... the machine having the speed issue ethernet was listing 9Mb/S whereas the other machine was up in the 25+Mb/S (it completed its search in short order) ... should have looked at the port status on the switch before I forced a change on the Network Card to 1G Full Duplex on the machine having issues ... it has now gone offline suggesting this entire time I have been fighting a hardware failure of some sort. Switch, Cable, or the Network Card

I am going to mark this as solved as I doubt this issue has anything to do with Access

[bxdobs]

Thanx for all the comments ... one of the results, specifically being able to run other MDB and ACCDB files, now also makes more sense in light of this HW failure in that the other DB Apps that I was opening are < 1MB in size whereas the 2 MDB Apps that I was struggling with are huge containing 20+ years of data.

[Welshgasman]

I once worked at a place where we had 5 PCs and a server, and despite the server being next to our desks, it was painfully slow.?
Turns out, all our network traffic was going to Coventry and then back to us in Birmingham.

Once the network guys sorted this out, it was as fast as expected.