Anything ranging from inelegant shutdowns to malware to something outside the scope of MS Access can bring down your database and more likely result in database corruption. Corruption can affect your data or disrupt the header of your database file. MS Access JET database engine has been designed to make sure minor corruptions that occur behind the scenes do not take a toll on your performance. However, if the corruption is left unresolved, it can make matters worse for you. Here’s a look at some of the most prominent causes of corruption in Access databases.
Causes of Corruption in Access Databases
Hardware Failures
Hardware failures are long known to cause corruption to your Access databases. Hard drive failures are followed by application crashes, which indeed cause the JET database engine to terminate unexpectedly. As the JET operates at file system level, an event of application crash is likely to make the engine stop any current write operation in the middle and get your database into an inconsistent state.
Software Conflicts
If you are using third-party ActiveX controls for Access, then you must ensure that they belong to a trusted source. In case one of these plug-ins crashes, it will bog down your database as well.
JET Software Conflicts
When working in a multi-user environment, each user may be running a different version of JET database engine. This causes problems while syncing changes and maintaining data integrity in the database because different versions of JET have different locking mechanisms and use unique mdb file formats. In the worst cases, JET software conflicts can lead to database corruption.
Multi-User Access
JET database plays a major role when performing file sharing in a multi-user environment. It uses a locking mechanism to handle simultaneous database read/writes. The proper working of this mechanism entirely depends on Windows OS API calls which indeed are dependent on file-transfer networking protocols. In the event that you lose a connection due to slow Internet speed or bandwidth issues, it is very likely that your database is marked as ‘suspect’ as a result of broken Jet communication. If you were doing a memory-intensive task (such as a large SQL Append query), then there are good chances that your database will become corrupt.
MS Access and JET Bugs
Bugs in MS Access or JET engine have been long known to cause database corruption. A typical example of such bug is the Name Auto-Correct feature in MS Access. It is recommended to disable this feature prior to creating a new Access database.
Inefficient Database Design
Using Access databases over a network may add extra bloat to the file, increasing the chances of corruption. The JET database file format is designed to make Access databases suitable for use on a local workstation, rather than in a network environment. Multi-user databases should be split between a front-end and a back-end in order for minimizing the risks of potential corruption.
In case your Access database is corrupt due to any of the aforementioned reasons, you should take help of professional Access database recovery software. With these competent tools, you can easily fix Access database corruption and recover all your key business assets from the corrupt file absolutely intact.
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