On timer event strange effects

[roberto21]

Trying to learn access, I played with a simple access app. An initial form is displayed, and the user can select an operation to be performed.
Let's say I want info on a customer. Another form is opened, the user enters the name, the related info are displayed, and when the user is done, he can press enter (and the form is redisplayed empty, ready for next name) or he can opt for exiting pressing the button EXIT (and the initial form is redisplayed). This works fine.




I tried to add a simple clock on the initial form. So, following suggestions found online, I defined a label called Clock, set the form timer to 1000, and added the code for the timer event

Private sub form_timer()
	me.Clock.caption = time
end sub

Now, when I open the initial form, the clock is displayed and updated every second, as it should. Fine? No. What happens is the following. The user opens the info form, enters a name and the related info are displayed. Now he presses enter, and the form is NOT cleared; if he presses EXIT, the initial form is NOT displayed (blank screen)


It is clear that the timer event code is causing this (removing it brings things to normal again), but why? Is there something else that must be taken care of?


Thank you for your patience... with a rookie.

[Welshgasman]

I have never played around with the Form Timer, but I suspect it is too busy updating that control every second?
To see if that is the case, change to every minute.

If that fixes it, lower the interval until it breaks again.
I have a clock on the taskbar, so never saw the need for a time on a form. Day countdown yes though.

[Micron]

Try Repaint method on the cleared form.

[roberto21]

Thanks a lot.
I don't know what repaint does, but I have the sequence

Docmd.close
DoCmd.OpenForm ("FrmCustomer")

that should close and reopen the form. Is this equivalent or not?

[roberto21]

Thank you a lot. I can't believe this: setting the timer to 60000 (1 minute) works, anything less doesn't. I was convinced that 1 second is an eternity for a computer, let alone one minute... and the program is doing nothing...
Of course I don't need a clock either, I was just fooling around, but this seems really strange.

[isladogs]

I have used code exactly as shown for many years to update time on a form every second.
However, that can use up as lot of resources

Remember Access is single thread - only one action can occur at a time
The timer code works perfectly providing no other code is currently running and which takes priority

Say for example you have code to run a procedure which takes 10 seconds to complete

The timer updates the clock before the procedure starts then the procedure runs preventing the clock updating.
Ten seconds later, the procedure is completed and the clock updates again jumping over the 'missed 10 seconds'

You may be better off just updating every minute. Your users won't notice if the update is a few seconds late occasionally

[roberto21]

Thanks again for your attention. I was a little pessimistic yesterday, it seems that the critical value is between 5 and 10 seconds (with 5 it doesn't work, with 10 it seems to work). In any event, I still am wondering why this happens. Granted the fact that access is single threaded etc, but why the code to close and reopen the form is not executed at all? Following your explanation, the timer should stop a few second, and then, when the form is redisplayed (empty, hopefully), "jump" over the missing seconds (note that in this form the clock is NOT displayed). And what happens to the code for redisplaying the initial form? The initial form is not redisplayed at all!Probably I am missing something basic here, but thank you anyhow for the explanations.