Topic: Database Errors causes No access to database functions!!!

[Ken]

Two days ago, all of a sudden and for no know reason, when loading a drawing I started getting a series of "Error Opening point group.mdb database" Error 80040154 Dialog boxes. I get the same error message for Point Groups.mdb, Xref.mdb, Default.mdb and Cogo/Points.mdb. After working through these boxes, the drawing will finish loading. However, trying to activate an Alignment or other Database commands, they fail and I get the message "AutoCAD Land Development Desktop is not initialized." I can work in the drawing, just can't do any database related work. I have tried every Repair and Reinstall available. Finally this morning, I did a complete AutoDesk Uninstall, including a (Gasp) Regedit to remove of the AutoDesk files that should have given me a Clean installation. But I'm sure you can guess by now, even that did not fix the problem. A new install today still retains to original problem, no database functions! 


Am I missing something? Some secret file to remove to get this working again? Should I try to reinstall Windows XP? At this point the only suggestion I have left to try is to buy a new Hard drive and start all over. I'm hoping somebody might have a solution other than that.

Really appreciate any help or ideas.

Ken

[Dent Cermak]

Sometimes when yiou do an uninstall, it gets all of the files undge LAND DESKTOP 200* but it leaves the files under the Windows folder. Did you check to make sure those files are all gone?

[Ken]

I think so!

I tried to follow the AutoDesk Knowlege Base procedure to ensure a clean install posted as ID: TS45252.
Here's a portion of that procedure that I followed:

***************************************
Remove any remaining Autodesk files

In Windows Explorer, delete the installation folder for each Autodesk product that was uninstalled in the previous procedure.
Delete the C:\Program Files\Common Files\Autodesk Shared\ folder.

Note: If your operating system is configured to store the Program Files folder on a drive other than C, the path is on that drive.

Delete the C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Autodesk folders.
Delete the following folders:

C:\Documents and Settings\<user>\Application Data\Autodesk
C:\Documents and Settings\<user>\Local Settings\Application Data\Autodesk

Note: You need to delete these folders for each Windows user account.

******************************************

I think I got all the folders listed above and removed all the Temp files that they suggested. But I'm sure I could have missed something, just don't know what it is. If you have any ideas, let me know.

I really thought this was going to take care of it, but no such luck.

Ken

[Dinosaur]

Can any other computer open the afflicted project?  If not, the database files themselves may be corrupted.  Try starting a brand new project with copies of your project drawings.  If that works, import the points and check for errors again.
If it won't create the project it is possible you are looking at the wrong source for trouble.  Check the installation of Microsoft Acess on your computer for correct operation.  One other thought, determine the version of Access you are running.  If you upgraded to Office 2003, I am not sure it is compatible with LDD 2005 or 2006.

[Ken]

Hi Steve,

Sorry, I forgot to mention that the problem is not project specific, it is computer specific. In this case my computer! All projects, database information and commands work fine on other computers. This leads me to believe that I'm NOT dealing with a corrupt database ... just a corrupt install of AutoCad or other software, that I can't seem to fix.

I will try some of your other suggestions and see if I can track it down. An Access problem would make sense. I'll let you know if I find anything that works.

Thanks.

Ken

[mjfarrell]

I wonder if this is a user permissions issue, or some one opening the MDB in the 'wrong' version of Access.

To resolve a permissions issue, you must set Full Control permissions on the Land Projects folder. Follow these steps:

Log in as Administrator and start Windows Explorer.
Right-click the Land Projects 2005 folder.
Click the Security tab and select the Users group.
Select Full Control Permissions. Click Apply.
Click Advanced.
In the Advanced Security Settings dialog box, verify that the Users group has an entry for Full Control.
Select Replace Permissions on All Child Objects.
Click OK.
Click Yes when prompted to reset the security permissions on all child objects.
 

[Ken]

Michael,

I've gone through the permissions issue as you suggested above. Set the permissions as you described, but I'm sorry to say, that did not have any effect on the problem.

If this is an Access problem, with the database having been saved in the wrong version, here's my question:

I just brought the same drawing up on another computer and there was no problem at all with the database. I was able to select and work with alignments and other database items in that project. If the database version is wrong, wouldn't it effect anyone trying to access the database and not just me?

And just to be clear, this is not a project specific problem. It occurs with every project and only on my machine. So, If that's what I need to do, what database would I need to convert back??

In order to get the ability to bring in Excel spreadsheets and have the formulas come into the Table Object, I did Upgrade to Office 2003 a week ago. But after that upgrade, I worked for days in these projects with no problem and at no time did I ever try to convert or even open a database of any kind.

The only event that might be somehow related to this problem, is that it occurred just after I installed Service Pack 2 for Civil 3D. That's the only activity that I know of, that happened between no problem and big problem. I don't see a relationship there to the problem, but it's the only thing I know I did immediately before the problem showed up.

I really appreciate all the ideas and suggestions. Hopefully there's a few more things to try before I have to go the new hard drive and start over route.

Ken

[Dinosaur]

Do your other computers have Office 2003 installed as well?  I know LDD can be very particular regarding which version of Access is installed.  If you did not work with any database after the upgrade to Office 2003 until you noticed this problem that is still a top suspect.  I can report that the ITwit at work installed Office 2003 and has since been unable to use his LDD 2005 and is working mainly with MAP and Civil 3D until he has time to solve his problem (yes Michael, yet one more reformat and reinstall of everything).  I am using Office XP with LDD/MAP 2005 and Civil 3D 2006 with no problems importing from Excel in either product.  I have not, however tried to work with formulas and tables.
I would also be suspicious of the SP2 installation.  As I mentioned in my response to your previous thread on installation advice, I have not yet applied that service pack.  I have not heard of this particular problem from installing it but it would be worth checking if you do another fresh install by trying to access the database before intstalling SP2.

[Jeff_M]

The only event that might be somehow related to this problem, is that it occurred just after I installed Service Pack 2 for Civil 3D. That's the only activity that I know of, that happened between no problem and big problem. I don't see a relationship there to the problem, but it's the only thing I know I did immediately before the problem showed up.

Did you also apply the SP1 for LDD? The readme for the SP2 says this:
For example, if you have Autodesk Land Desktop 2006 installed on the same computer as Autodesk Civil 3D 2006, you must install both Autodesk Land Desktop 2006 Service Pack 1 and Autodesk Civil 3D 2006 Service Pack 2 to ensure both products continue to work properly.

[Ken]

Steve,
I am the only person in our office that Upgraded to Office 2003. After that Upgrade, I worked for days without problems accessing project data files. I sure hope this is not the problem, as some of the latest functions that they have promoted the upgrade to 2006, only work properly with the latest version of Excel. But I would like to hear from somebody that's using LDD 2006 and Office 2003, just to confirm that these two products are compatible.

Also, since my "Clean" install this weekend, I have not installed C3D or the C3D service Pack, LDD 2006. But the problem is still there. My next step may be to try to Uninstall Office 2003, just to see if that has any effect.

Jeff,
Yes, I had installed the LDD SP1 prior to C3D SP2 install and it was working okay for at least a week.

Okay guys, here's some SCARY news: I just found out this morning that somebody else here had the same problem on a computer two weeks ago. That computer had been working for years, no upgrades, no changes ... nothing, then, bam ... no access to the database info, with the same errors I've been getting. They didn't have time to troubleshoot it, so after they had no luck with a reinstall, they bought him a new computer and installed LDD 2006 on it. That system is working fine now, with no problems accessing the database info. I've been continuing to think it was somehow Upgrade related, but now I don't have a clue as to what's going on, or when it might show up on another computer.

I'm continuing to search for an answer, but I don't have much more time before I have to punt and do that ugly reformat thing and start over.

Ken

[Dinosaur]

As far as I can tell from our experience, Office 2003 is not really compatible with LDD 2004, 2005 or 2006.  Some things may work but as I mentioned, our ITwit lost the use of his LDD functions after upgrading to 2003.

Something else to consider, we have had troubles with plotting OLE objects that were created or inserted into drawings with Office versions different from those on the computer that is plotting.  They would be visible on the preview but would not plot unless done on the computer with the correct version of Office installed.  I would strongly recommend having all computers running on the same versions of the software.

[Ken]

If that is the case and LDD is not compatible with Office 2003, it sure would be nice if AutoDesk would have let me know about it before I messed up my system. But I sure that's a discussion for another time.

My most confusing question right now is how did this same problem happen on a machine two weeks ago and that machine did not have any upgraded software of any kind?? And why didn't a "Clean" reinstall get rid of it for me??

I know sometimes, S__t just happens!! But two different machines, with different levels of software, get the same problem that we've never seen before??? And apparently ... not fixable??? Just my luck I guess!

Ken

[Dinosaur]

The fact that the same problem occurred earlier without the possible software conflicts is very troubling.  It would have been very helpful if an attempt had been made to diagnose the problem and fix it at that time.  If that old computer is still around and functional the clue might be still hiding in it.  If not, it is a lost opportunity to learn what happened and how to prevent it.  It is frustrating; the standard approach here is also to reformat and reinstall (this topic is how I first became acquainted with MJFarrell, btw, over at augi).

[Dinosaur]

If we ignore the Office 2003 and residual registry issues as the possible problem, I have these questions left:

Are you installing ALL of your programs to their default locations or are you specifying an alternate?  Is this consistant for all of your computers?  Occasionally and especially with Civil 3D, paths become hard coded for some things and they will become unavailable if they are not consistant between all computers.  Sometimes an alternate location just doesn't work and I prefer to just put everything (especially Autodesk products) exactly where they want to go.

Is it possible a user profile or workspace became corrupted somehow on one or both of the computers in question?

Long shots

What are the conditions / specifications of the hard drives in question.  If they are older IDE drives there may be bad spots forming on them.  It wouldn't hurt to do a surface scan at any rate given the current state of quality control.

LDD functions can be lost when the user runs MAP and LDD at the same time.  I have not heard of such a severe case of this happening but . . .

- EDIT -

Do you know if the other computer was affected this way by ALL projects or just one project?  This can be duplicated on a single project by having  two different drawings in different projects open simultaneously.  It can be easily fixed by re-associating the projects with any affected drawings.  It would also eliminate the troublesome duplicate problem from consideration.

[Ken]

Thanks for all the ideas, I'll be trying to work through them as soon as I can. I have been in contact with Michael and we talked this morning about what he believes is a User Profile/mapping/permission problem of some kind. I'll be working through his suggestions too. Hopefully somehow I can find this pesky gremlin and beat it to death.
 :pissed:

Unfortunately, they still seem to want me to be somewhat productive here, so it may take a little time to get through all the suggestions.

I appreciate everyone who is trying to help! I'll let you know if I can find something that works.

Ken

[Dinosaur]

It sounds like Michael and I are sniffing the same trail.  Since he has a much keener nose than I, you should have a solution forthcoming.  Please post back with any solutions you come up with.  Now I think I shall go rant in the general forum about trashing a troublesome install and destroying valuable evidence of what went wrong.

[Ken]

Go get'm Dinosaur!!!

Once I find an answer, I guarantee I will shout it to the WORLD!!! As best I can anyway.

Ken

[Ken]

Okay, here's what I know so far:

Logging me on as a user on another computer works once the mapping is set up for me on that computer. LDD works and there is access to the database. No errors pop up. It looks like I could sit down and use that computer with no problem.

Then we tried to log on another user at my computer ... the problem is still here.

At this point it looks like nobody could log onto this computer and get it to work properly with LDD. Haven't been able to determine yet if it's a software or hardware problem, but it seems to be isolated to this computer. Still don't have a fix, but at least we're getting it narrowed down a little bit.

Ken

[Dinosaur]

One more long shot . . . Did you try to repair or reinstall Office AFTER all of the AutoDesk stuff?

[Ken]

I am in the process of doing that now and there's a new problem.

I uninstalled LDD 2006 and Civil Design 2006. I uninstalled Office 2003. Then did all the things I needed to do for a "clean" install.

I have just tried to install LDD 2006 and it stopped due to an installer error 1317, which indicates it was trying to create the directory: C:\Land Projects 2006\Tutorial2

I don't have any idea why the install would fail at that point ... but it did.

Where's a loaded gun when you really need one.

I'll keep trying things but this seems to be getting worse, not better.

Ken

[Dinosaur]

See what THIS has to say.

Are you logging in as administrator or at least with administrator privileges for your installations?

[Ken]

Steve,

Thanks for the info on the 1317 Error. I'll show it to our IT/Tech guy and see if he can help me work through it. He should be helping me, but since he's not having this problem on his machine, he's not been very responsive ... except to say "Looks like YOU'VE got a problem". BTW, he was the first one to have this problem and his own solution was to just buy a new machine.

Thanks for all the help and ideas.

Ken

[Dinosaur]

Ken,

Is THIS GUY your IT person?
His problem sounds identical to yours.

[Ken]

No, that's not my "IT" guy but they seem to be in the same species and here's why!

The good news is I have my system working again, the bad news is I still don't know the cause of the glitch, so we may have to deal with it again.

While talking to somebody else in the office about this problem, he asked me that since my machine is using XP, why don't I use the Restore function available in XP and simply restore the whole system to a point prior to the glitch! Wow, now isn't that something you would think the "IT" guy would have had some knowledge of and want to try before he says "Just buy a new machine"?? Anyway, as I now know, XP periodically and automatically creates these system backups, probably at least twice a week, or you can create a specific restore points whenever you want. Then it's a simple thing to have it restore the system to how it looked at a previous time. So, that's what I did. After some reconfiguring needed to connect to the network and pathing to a new server, the glitch is gone!! So, my recommendation is anybody out there running XP, become familiar with this function and create specific restore points as necessary.

I wish I knew the cause of this problem, but at least I know that if it happens again, within a hour, I can be working again. If this becomes a constant and recurring problem, I'm hoping we can do enough troubleshooting to correct the cause. For now, I'm just happy to be working again and we saved the company from having to buy a new machine.

Thanks for everyones help and suggestions. If anybody has a similar problem and finds a true solution, I would still really like to hear a bout it.

Ken

[Dinosaur]

Ken,

Glad to see you are finally out of the shop!  I had thought about the restore idea but thought you had already redone Windows too so that would be unavailable.  That is an important thing to remember when you are having these problems and have XP.  I think it also sets a restore point every time you install anything for just this purpose.

[Dinosaur]

This response just appeared in the Autodesk Newsgroup in a thread about a problem similar to yours.

Re: Error opening Point Group Database: 80040154
There is no problem with your .mdb. , but there is a problem with MDAC on that specific machine. You need to re-install MDAC ( which is a windows component ) if you have windows SP2 go to http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/ps/item?id=5590359&linkID=24755&siteID=123112 This is case sensitive I discovered. Ps, i'll bet you just upgraded from ldd 2002. Hope this helps

Hopefully you won't have any need for it again.

Note - this is a dead link, but the information may be useful to find the correct one

[Ken]

That looks like great info Steve.

In fact we do have one machine sitting here that still has the problem, so I will see if that fixes it before we do a System Restore on it. I have recently Upgraded from 2004 to 2006. But the first machine it showed up on, had been running 2004 for years, with no recent upgrades. This gremlin did show up shortly after we did a major "Server Upgrade", not sure how they could be related, but it makes more sense that anything else so far. As of today, it hasn't shown up on any other machines, so maybe at this point I'm just chasing a ghost. But I'd sure like to be ready with a fix just in case it shows up again.

I'll let you know if this turns out to be the cure.

BTW, your "Suddenly Stopped Working" thread in General was great. It brought up some important discussion and comments.

Ken

[Jeff_M]

FWIW, the OP in the Adesk thread just reported that the MDAC repair solved their problem.....