Excel Data Connection errors on Refresh

Question

Solved! See below for solution!

I'm in Excel 2010 connecting to multiple, seperate Access 2010 db's from Excel through PivotTable data connections.

Refreshing all my connections causes the final refresh to fail. The order does not matter, I've manually refreshed in different orders, same error.

However, if I save and close after refreshing a few, then come back and refresh the last one, there is no problem at all.

Leads me to believe that I'm hitting some sort of memory cap that is reset when I save and close.

Can I re-create that effect through VBA without actually save/closing? Is there a better solution to this issue?

Error Messages - These three pop up in this order:

• The query did not run, or the database table could not be opened.
• Problems obtaining data.
• A PivotTable, cube function or slicer using connection has failed to refresh.

Current Code

Private Sub CommandButton1_Click()
On Error GoTo ErrHndlr

Application.ScreenUpdating = False
Application.Calculation = xlCalculationManual
Application.StatusBar = "Refreshing Data - Please Be Patient"

ActiveWorkbook.Connections("Connection_1").Refresh
ActiveWorkbook.Connections("Connection_2").Refresh
ActiveWorkbook.Connections("Connection_3").Refresh

Application.Calculation = xlCalculationAutomatic
Application.StatusBar = "Ready"
[LastUpdated].Value = FormatDateTime(Now, vbGeneralDate)
Application.ScreenUpdating = True
Exit Sub

ErrHndlr:
  Application.StatusBar = "Ready"
  Application.Calculation = xlCalculationAutomatic
  Application.ScreenUpdating = True
  [LastUpdated].Value = "Update Error"
  Exit Sub

End Sub

Connection String

Provider=Microsoft.ACE.OLEDB.12.0
;User ID=Admin
;Data Source=C:\Folders\Database_1.accdb
;Mode=Share Deny None
;Extended Properties=""
;Jet OLEDB:System database=""
;Jet OLEDB:Registry Path=""
;Jet OLEDB:Engine Type=6
;Jet OLEDB:Database Locking Mode=0
;Jet OLEDB:Global Partial Bulk Ops=2
;Jet OLEDB:Global Bulk Transactions=1
;Jet OLEDB:New Database Password=""
;Jet OLEDB:Create System Database=False
;Jet OLEDB:Encrypt Database=False
;Jet OLEDB:Don't Copy Locale on Compact=False
;Jet OLEDB:Compact Without Replica Repair=False
;Jet OLEDB:SFP=False
;Jet OLEDB:Support Complex Data=False
;Jet OLEDB:Bypass UserInfo Validation=False

---

Attempted Solutions

• Disable Background Refresh - Already disabled
• Disable Auto-Recover (to save memory)
• Clear "Undo Stack" (to save memory)
• 'DoEvents' to delay code execution until each refresh is concluded, changing:

this

ActiveWorkbook.Connections("Connection_1").Refresh

to

With ActiveWorkbook.Connections("Connection_1")
  Select Case .Type
    Case xlConnectionTypeODBC
      With .ODBCConnection
        .Refresh
        Do While .Refreshing
          DoEvents
        Loop
      End With
    Case xlConnectionTypeOLEDB
      With .OLEDBConnection
        .Refresh
        Do While .Refreshing
          DoEvents
        Loop
      End With
    Case Else
      .Refresh
  End Select
End With

SOLUTION!

Side note, I have a couple extra connections that I didn't want updated through this code, and added some additional, simple logic to specify which connections I wanted updated. This code here works to refresh every connection in your workbook:

Dim i As Integer
Dim awc As WorkbookConnection
Dim c As OLEDBConnection

Set awc = ActiveWorkbook.Connections.Item(i)
Set c = awc.OLEDBConnection
c.EnableRefresh = True
c.BackgroundQuery = False
c.Reconnect
c.Refresh
awc.Refresh
c.MaintainConnection = False
Next i

I don't know the specifics of why this works, which part of this allows Excel to get over its self-limitation. I'd love to hear more if anyone is more familiar!

Answer 1

So I had a similar error when I was trying to create a VBA script to refresh an excel workbook automatically at a given time, and there were a few things that I did in my VBA script to get this to work. One of them being disabling background refresh. That could be your issue and you can easily do disable it by going to your connection properties and disabling background refreshing.

Here is what I did in VBA when I was getting this error, although I will say I was not using it with an MS access db. I had one excel workbook that I used as a 'runner' and it opened up the other books one by one and refreshed their connections. Basically I had a variable for the path and extension and put the names of each workbook into an array and looped through the array.

I combined the path and extension to give me the full filename of the file, you will see that in the loop.

This is what my loop looked like :

For i = LBound(testArray) To UBound(testArray)
    Dim wb As Workbook
    Set wb = Workbooks.Open(path & testArray(i) & ext, 0, False)

    'Next I checked to see if the workbook was in protected view and allowed for editing.
    If Application.ProtectedViewWindows.Count > 0 Then
        Application.ActiveProtectedViewWindow.Edit
    End If

    'Now comes the part that I believe should help for your case
    wb.Connections(testArray(i) & "This is your connection name").OLEDBConnection.BackgroundQuery = False
    wb.RefreshAll
    wb.Connections(testArray(i) & "This is your connection name").OLEDBConnection.BackgroundQuery = True

    wb.SaveAs fileName:= "Thisbook.xlsx"
    wb.Close
Next i

To get the connection name there are a few ways, including just looking to see what it is manually. For me because I wanted to make it so that I didn't need to manually put in every connection name I used the inherent pattern that I saw with the connections names.

In my case that was the baseNameOfWorkbook & " POS Report"

I do believe that you may be getting the errors due to background refreshing. So if you don't need to do this in VBA I would just suggest going to connection properties and disabling it.

Let me know if this works.

Answer 2

This is not a full answer, but an attempt to help debug, so that hopefully we can arrive at a solution.

I believe you can solve this issue by debugging the Connections. Try replacing your Refresh code above (and the replacement with DoEvents) with the following Sub. First, it is possible that displaying the dialog between Refreshes will fix the problem (if the problem is concurrent refreshes, etc). Second, each time it runs, check carefully that nothing has changed. Please report back with any discoveries or info. If you still get the errors, step through the code and report back the line that raises the error.

Sub ShowDebugDialog()

   Dim x As Integer
   Dim i As Integer, j As Integer
   Dim awc As WorkbookConnection
   Dim c As OLEDBConnection

   For i = 1 To ActiveWorkbook.Connections.Count
   'For i = ActiveWorkbook.Connections.Count To 1 Step -1

      For j = 1 To ActiveWorkbook.Connections.Count
         Set awc = ActiveWorkbook.Connections.Item(j)
         Set c = awc.OLEDBConnection
         x = MsgBox("ConnectionName: " & awc.Name & vbCrLf & _
              "IsConnected: " & c.IsConnected & vbCrLf & _
              "BackgroundQuery: " & c.BackgroundQuery & vbCrLf & _
              "MaintainConnection: " & c.MaintainConnection & vbCrLf & _
              "RobustConnect: " & c.RobustConnect & vbCrLf & _
              "RefreshPeriod: " & c.RefreshPeriod & vbCrLf & _
              "Refreshing: " & c.Refreshing & vbCrLf & _
              "EnableRefresh: " & c.EnableRefresh & vbCrLf & _
              "Application: " & c.Application & vbCrLf & _
              "UseLocalConnection: " & c.UseLocalConnection _
              , vbOKOnly, "Debugging")
      Next j

      Set awc = ActiveWorkbook.Connections.Item(i)
      Set c = awc.OLEDBConnection
      c.EnableRefresh = True
      c.BackgroundQuery = False
      c.Reconnect
      c.Refresh
      awc.Refresh
      c.MaintainConnection = False
   Next i

End Sub

Additional questions you can answer if you're still getting errors:

• Was BackgroundQuery always false?
• Was there a perceptable delay between each set of dialogs (indicating Excel is waiting for a refresh to complete) or did they all come up immediately after the last one?
• Which line of code raises the initial error? If you refresh the Connections in backwards order (by uncommenting the "Step -1" line) do you get the error at the same connection?
• When you say you can update the connections manually, is this through a different macro or through Data >> Connections >> Refresh?
• Any errors if you manually select "RefreshAll"?

Sorry for all the questions but you have to think of everything when debugging nasty connection errors like this.