[Samba] samba & MS Access problems

[Daniel Kasak]

Juan Ignacio Barbosa wrote:

> Hi, I'm having an odd behaviour with a samba file server (3.0.14a) on
> ubuntu 5.10 breezy an MS access files. When  a user open an mdb file,
> this file can't be opened by anyone else by doubleclicking on it,
> (simply nothing happens), BUT if I open Ms Access and then open the file
> manually from there, there is no problem.
> I'v tried on Windows XP shares and this is not happening. I'v tried a
> newer version of ubuntu+samba (6.06+3.0.24) but the problem it's still
> there.
> Any idea how to solve this, if posible?
>   

While I can't help you much with the samba side of things, I can tell 
you that you should avoid having multiple people accessing the same 
Access mdb file at once. While Access is supposed to support this in 
theory, in practice it doesn't work that well, and I would be 
particularly paranoid about having it sitting on a samba server ( sorry ).

Are you using Access to store the data, or just as a front-end with 
linked tables? If you're using linked tables, then get everyone to 
create a local copy of the Access mdb file and use the local copy. If 
you're using Access to store your data ( which is in itself asking for 
trouble ), then disregard what I've just said and keep looking for a 
solution ... and investigate moving your data to a database server and 
linking the tables in Access ( or even better, getting rid of Access 
completely ).

-- 
Daniel Kasak
IT Developer
NUS Consulting Group
Level 5, 77 Pacific Highway
North Sydney, NSW, Australia 2060
T: (+61) 2 9922-7676 / F: (+61) 2 9922 7989
email: dkasak at nusconsulting.com.au
website: http://www.nusconsulting.com.au