As I had posted a short while ago, a bunch of MVPs set off to do what Microsoft has, thus far, refused to do: provided timely, detailed supported of bugs as soon as they are spotted in the wild and impacting users.

A New Microsoft Access Bug Tracking Website

As many of you are aware, for years, I tried to keep up with the onslaught of continual Microsoft Office/Access bug on this very blog, some (not all) are mentioned in my article: That said, bug tracking has truly become a full-time job as more and more bugs occurs and trying to keep the information…

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The truth of the matter is Microsoft is a HUGE entity and everything there has procedures to follow, approvals to be gotten, so most everything runs at a snails pace. Hence, even confirming and then documenting bugs has shown MS to be less than responsive leaving users holding the bag for days, weeks … (and this isn’t due to the Dev Team not being aware of and actively working on the problems!)

The MVPs, on the other hand, are not tied by such formalities! They can post content within minutes, update them freely, allow comments from the public, …

A Bug Listing

Up until now, the site has been publishing content on individual bugs, so a post per bug.  Recently, they published a post inventorying the currently known Access bugs:

Access Bugs – The Long List 2023/1

We are compiling a list of major and minor Access bugs here over time. It shall serve as a reference for the community and in our discussions with Microsoft. Feel free to support us in this endeavour in the comments. This is an intentional work-in-progress. We have a long backlog list of bug candida…

This listing, and earlier posts, clearly demonstrate that these MVPs have been working hard on the matter since the site’s launch.

Still Room For Improvement, Sure

Personally, they are off to a good start.

Yes, there’s room for improvement, but they are documenting bugs as they are discovered and getting public visibility and support content about them very promptly.  They are offering links to workarounds, fixes …  We see items listed on AccessForever that aren’t even listed on Microsoft’s official page.  So they are definitely getting information out quickly!

The one thing I did notice however is  they didn’t ensure to include the known bugs from the official Fixes or workarounds page:

Fixes or workarounds for recent issues in Access - Microsoft Support

Fixes or workarounds for recent issues in Access

For instance, in their 2023 listing, they do not include

• TreeView control with a large number of nodes causes an Exception in Access
• Crash occurs when trying to send mail from Access

I think for the sake of completeness, they should be including these so Access users truly have a (Searchable, cough cough Microsoft!) one stop shop of Access bugs.

I also think they might consider adding a Status at the top of their posts (under investigation, active & confirmed, fixed), so when issues eventually get resolved (patched), they could indicate that and perhaps include a section with the details. That said, they may have already thought of this, but simply haven’t had any active bugs resolved to demonstrate how they will be distinguishing these.

All that to say, they’re off to a great start, and it will be interesting to see the progression in the coming months and years.