Access Database already exclusively opened by another user

Question

I have an access database that sits on server x iis is running on server y. One of my web pages access data from the access database. If someone has the access database open say a end user on our network the web pages fail with a ...already opened exclusively by another user error message.

I created a local access database and used linked tables in order to access the tables that way. Even still I get the already opened exclusively by another user error. If I go through windows explorer and browse out to server x and open the database I can without issue. So my question is how can I simulate the same type of connectivity to the database without the error being thrown is it a matter of permissions to the access database or something within my connectionstring that would allow me to access the database.

Since it throws the error during my connection.open command I am figuring it is either permission related or something additional I need to add to my connection string. I have granted full control for the IIS AppPool\ on the local directory in which my local instance of the access database resides in but didn't seem to make a difference.

My connection string looks like:

Private Shared connSheriff As New OleDbConnection("Provider=Microsoft.Jet.OLEDB.4.0;Data Source=\\serverx\directory\Access\MyDatabase.mdb;Jet OLEDB:Database Password=property;")

Answer 1

There are some options within the mdb that change how the database is opened by default, these should be your first port of call particularly setting the "default open mode" to "shared".

You've already split the database (data tables in the shared back-end, linked tables and the rest in the front-end). Make sure that each user uses a separate copy of the front-end mdb, otherwise you'll get locking issues on this.

There is a command line switch (/excl) that sets exclusive mode, but you just omit this to open the db shared so I doubt this is a problem.

You probably already know this but the "Shared" modifier has nothing to do with sharing between applications or users, but shares the connection variable between instances of your class (the c# equivalent is "static")