Access – Export to MySQL or Another RDMS

I’ve been migrating a few databases away from Access recently, moving towards more stable RDMS’. I thought I’d quickly share 2 bits of code that I created to try and simplify the process. These are geared towards exporting to MySQL, but can easily be adapted to any RDMS of your choosing with minor tweaks.

I didn’t like the idea of using random applications found online for which I have no clue what’s under the hood, how or what is being done with the data… So I set off to create a ‘simple’ VBA solution myself.

Both of these bits of code are not polished off (don’t even have error handling!), and don’t support all the data types, but for me that isn’t a concern as I don’t use attachments, multivalued fields, … (One more reason never to use them in the first place, they make exporting much more complicated)

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Microsoft Office/Access V2206 – Stay Away!

I previously reported issues with V2206 (actually the version varies depending on your Update Channel! just to add complexity to the mess) breaking MDEs/ACCDEs at startup, you can read all about it in my article

Access - MDEs & ACCDEs Breaking

As reported to me earlier in the day (by Mark D) and now confirmed by multiple sources, it would seem we have another bug to add to our long list impacting MDEs & ACCDEs . You know you’ve been impacted by this issue if you receive the following error message: The expression on open you…

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I’ve also received reports and seen in various forums that things are even worse, that 2206 breaks other features such as:

DoCmd.TransferText
DoCmd.OutputTo
…

Reporting an error along the lines of:

Runtime error ‘3125’:

‘FileName’ is not a valid name. Make sure that it does not include invalid characters and it is not too long.

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Access – MDEs & ACCDEs Breaking

As reported to me earlier in the day (by Mark D) and now confirmed by multiple sources, it would seem we have another bug to add to our long list impacting MDEs & ACCDEs .

You know you’ve been impacted by this issue if you receive the following error message:

The expression on open you entered as the event property setting produced the following error. Requested type library or wizard is not a VBA project.

another report presented the error as being:

The expression you entered as the event property setting produced the following error:

The expression may not result in the name of a macro, the name of a user-defined function, or [Event Procedure]. There may have been an error evaluating the function, event, or macro.

This appears to impact:

MS365 all versions (July 12, 2022 update) – It is widespread and the build varies depending on the Update Channel you are using
KB5002121 for Office 2013
KB5002112 for Office 2016

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Sharing Files Over The Internet

Historically, if we needed to share a file with family, clients, … we could simply attach it to an e-mail and life was good.

Over the years, as file sizes have grown and also certain security updates have been implemented attaching files to e-mails has become a little less of a solution, so how can we still get our files, programs, … to destination?

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Access – Cannot open a database created with a previous version

After seeing this one in forums numerous times over the years, and being contacted via my blog regarding this issue, I thought it was long time overdue that I briefly touch upon this error:

Cannot open a database created with a previous version

What Is This All About?

The short of it is that newer versions of Access no longer support older versions of the MDB file format. They only support the newest 2000 and 2002-2003 MDB file formats.

So if you get the above error message that indicates that your MDB is in an even earlier MDB format, ’97, … 2.0, …

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Access – Devastation

Saw this one today and had to share.

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Access – VBA – Set Focus On Specific Document Tab

I was trying to help out in a UA thread:

How to toggle between tabs in Access programmatically

I have tabbed Access. I have a main form where the whole shebang happens.

On that form is a button that opens a report (as another tab)

What I need is when the user double clicks on the field on that report to switch back to the Main form - it should be in focus.

The Question?

The question was:

How can one switch to a specific tab, when using Tab Documents?

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VBA – Activate a Specific Ribbon Tab

As part of my article on Compacting the current database:

Access - VBA - Compact the Current Database

Here’s a functionality that is often asked for: How can I compact the current database via code (VBA)? Typically the answer is either: It can’t be done (the functionality was removed, don’t ask me why – ask Microsoft?!) Set the Compact on Close property to True, close the database and then set it back to…

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Some users indicated an issue that the code only worked when the Database Tools tab was first activated.

So I wanted to find a way to do this, and I finally did!

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Access – Bug – The Case of the Disappearing Status Bar

It has been reported by 2 different MVPs now where the Status Bar just ups and leaves, disappears. And when 2 distinct MVPs experience the same issue, Huston, we have a bug!

No big deal right! The obvious solution being to simply reset the database option to enable the Status Bar:

File -> Options -> Current Database -> Display Status Bar (under the Application Options heading)

Yet, this did nothing for either of them!

Sound familiar to anyone? Haven’t we seen this behavior before, remember:

Open last used database when Access starts Not Working

There’s a new bug with Access 2016 in which the Open last used database when Access starts property does not work. This issue also seem to involve hung msaccess.exe process, so Access does not appear to be shutting down properly. When exiting Access, be sure to use check the Windows Task Manager for hung processes…

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So what is one to do exactly, mess around in the registry obviously! 🙂

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Access – Bug – DoCmd.OutputTo acFormatXLSX Doesn’t Work

Part of a recent discussion in UtterAccess:

Export Report out to Excel

I have upgraded a client form Access 2003 to Access 2016 but when I go to export the report to excel I am getting the attached error, it looks like it is no longer available

and after some testing, I can confirm that exporting a report as acFormatXLSX fails with the error:

You can successfully use DoCmd.OutputTo to export:

tables
queries
forms

as acFormatXLSX, but not reports!

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