How do I automatically compact and repair an Access 2007 database?

Question

I have a site that uses classic ASP and a database in Access 2007 format (.accdb). It is encrypted with a password and is about 300 MiB in file size.

The site works fine by itself but every now and then the database gets corrupted (the error is "unrecognized database format"). It can be fixed easily by opening the database in MS Access, then it will be repaired. Problem is it can take days before I notice the database is corrupted and during that time the site will be useless. Sometimes it takes months between each corruption, other times only a week or two.

What I want is the site to be able to call the "Compact and Repair Database" function itself every now and then (once a day or so) to keep the database in a working condition.

My question is how do I do this, make it repair itself?

I found this article: How do I compact and repair an ACCESS 2007 database by .NET code? ...but I don't understand how I can make that work for me. I only know classic ASP and Java.

Can anyone write a little isolated ASP code that does this: "open connection to password-protected database", "repairs the database", "close the connection".

The site and database is on a dedicated server which I have full control over so I can implement any solution that exists.

Thank you very much!

Answer 1

I got the answer I needed in another question I asked: Why can't I use "CompactDatabase" in DAO.DBEngine.36 using VBscript?

The user "HansUp" gave me the following code:

Dim objFSO 
Dim objEngine 
Dim strLckFile 
Dim strSrcName 
Dim strDstName 
Dim strPassword


strLckFile =  "C:\Access\webforums\foo.laccdb" 
strSrcName =  "C:\Access\webforums\foo.accdb" 
strDstName =  "C:\Access\webforums\compacted.accdb" 
strBackup = "C:\Access\webforums\foobackup.accdb" 
strPassword = "foo"

Set objEngine = CreateObject("DAO.DBEngine.120")

Set objFSO = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject") 
If Not (objFSO.FileExists(strLckFile)) Then 
    If (objFSO.FileExists(strBackup)) Then 
        objFSO.DeleteFile strBackup 
    End If 
    If (objFSO.FileExists(strDstName)) Then 
        objFSO.DeleteFile strDstName 
    End If 
    objFSO.CopyFile strSrcName, strBackup

''dbVersion120 = 128  
objEngine.CompactDatabase strSrcName, strDstName, , 128, ";pwd=" & strPassword

objFSO.DeleteFile strSrcName 
objFSO.MoveFile strDstName, strSrcName 


End If 'LckFile

(The code got a few extra line breaks when I copied it for some reason, follow the link at the beginning of this post for a little cleaner version of the code if you wish.)

It compresses a Access 2007 database to a Access 2007 database (no format change) AND it also repairs any corruption (inconsistent state) in the database! Just what I was looking for. =)

Answer 2

You can write a script that repairs the database every now and then. But there are two problems:

1) How to detect the database is corrupt 2) How to minimize data loss.

The biggest problem is that you are trying to fix a problem which lies within the access database itself (frequent data corruption). Because of this, the product is not suitable for any serious application. So why don't you switch to a more reliable database? (MS SQL, MYSQL, ORACLE, SQL Lite, and more to choose from).

Answer 3

Can SQL Server Express be legally licensed for use on a web server? If so then I'd suggest moving your data to it instead. If not there are other options mentioned elsewhere. At the following page SQL Server 2008 Express I see mention of a Web Platform Installer so that would imploy you can use it on a web server. But I do not interpret EULAs so I leave that decision to you.