Does VB.NET trash Access databases?

Question

Grasping at straws here... I work with a VB6 desktop system using several 2003-style Access databases (.MDB). Recently, I changed the first function from VB6 to VB.NET, still using an Access database. This is more than a conversion, but a rewrite with additional functionality. It is still fairly simple functionality, with a low-volume database. We have 1400 customers, small businesses with varying machine qualities. Most customers are happy with the new screen and functionality. A very few of those customers have experienced EXTREME slowness loading the datagridview. Customer Service tells us that 1) the machines have at least 1 GB of RAM, and 2) rebooting always solves the problem.

I wrote an app to severely slow down my machine, and it STILL runs better for me than it does for those few customers. Also, my Access database has never been trashed by this application.

Any suggestions?

Thanks!!

Answer 1

No, VB.Net works great with Access. SHARED environments will trash access.

Since rebooting solves the problem I would check that you are closing your connections properly.

Answer 2

Sounds like a big memory leak to me.

Some customers will leave your application running for longer than others, and will be harder hit.

Using Access where there are more than a few concurrent users inevitably results in pain.

Answer 3

We have similar experience, the most cases are causes by antivirus. They check the file VERY often ( some antivures every access to file ).

Answer 4

Rebooting while updating an access database can trash it.

You need some more info so that you have a better understanding of what is going on. They need to collect some information for you on a workstation that is having the problem. Using task manager you can have them get the following info:

• CPU utilization
• What task is consuming the most cpu
• Peak (committed) memory on XP - no equiv on Vista
• Total (committed) memory on XP - no equiv on Vista
• Available (physical) memory on XP - Free on Vista (made worthless by Superfetch)

It's also possible to use the command line tool "SYSTEMINFO" on both XP and Vista to get Total and Available memory. If you have very little available and on XP if your Total committed is larger than your Total Physical then you are most likely swapping and lack of memory (or a memory leak) is causing your slow down.

Bottom line is you need more information. It may be another app on the workstation is causing the problem. We had a situation where Notes 5.0 had a problem where if most of the window is covered up by another window and you received a new mail message the cpu utilization on Notes went to 100%. This caused apps to run slow and unless you are on the workstation looking at task monitor you would never guess it was Notes causing the problem. The problem was always called in on a different program (the one in the foreground). Access can also use 100% cpu in different modes even though it doesn't seem like it's doing anything.

Gather as much info as you can. You might want to write a vbscript or program that will will gather some info for you so that whomever is having the problem can run it to gather the info before rebooting.

A batch file that does the following will give you quite a bit of info:

@echo off
SystemInfo  >c:\systeminfo.log
tasklist /v >>c:\systeminfo.log