Re: Error : "The database has been placed in a state by user <name> on machine <name>
Cheer, your answers make me think you have not run into the "split database" topic before this.
When you share a database among multiple users, you incur a lot of file locks and a lot of (for lack of a better term) usage collisions. I.e. users interfere with each other.
The strategy to minimize this (you can't eliminate it) is to split the database into a front-end and a back-end, which we lovingly shorten to FE and BE. All of the tables and their relationships go into the BE. Everything else (queries, forms, reports, macros, modules) goes into the FE. Then everybody gets a private copy of the FE. You put the BE on a server or dedicated workstation that will be available during all hours when your users are using whatever you've got. The "public" copy of the FE that everyone copies to their individual machines is set up so that it points to the tables in the BE using Linked Table Manager.
By splitting, you do a couple of useful things.
1. Since everybody has a copy of the FE file and it is separate from the BE, nobody runs into file lock conflicts on anything in the FE. All FE locks are private because the FE is private. Opening a form or report opens a local copy on your hard drive so that part is as fast to read as is possible.
2. Since the BE is now smaller, and remembering that "native" Access is a file-oriented database as opposed to a "transaction records only" database, that smaller file means smaller data transfers. Further, if you use queries carefully, it is possible to design a system in which you tell the FE that its queries are either "Optimistic" or "None" in terms of locking style. (You use "None" only on read-only/lookup operations.) By doing this, you reduce (not eliminate) the amount of time that the BE is "in a state." And since the FE isn't shared, it will NEVER be "in a state" because all structural data is PRIVATE.
This forum has a virtual TON of articles on splitting a database and on front-end or back-end issues. I suggest you hit the "search" function in the blue ribbon at the top of the page and do some reading.