PRB: 'Not a valid path' Error when Using Access Data Source (167452)

SYMPTOMS

When attempting to view a Web page that contains a connection to an Access data source, the following error is displayed:

Microsoft OLE DB Provider for ODBC Drivers error '80004005'

[Microsoft][ODBC Microsoft Access 97 Driver] '(unknown)' isn't a valid path. Make sure that the path name is spelled correctly and that you are connected to the server on which the file resides.

You can, however, still see all the data in the Data View tab.

CAUSE

When using a FILE DSN in Visual InterDev, the path to the Access .mdb file is hard coded into the Global.asa. The error is returned because the Web Server cannot find the .mdb with the path specified. For example, here are two possible scenarios:

The Access .mdb file is on the server.
The client machine has drive "H" mapped to this directory.
When creating the Global.asa, InterDev hard codes "H:\MyData.mdb."

Result: Trying to browse MyPage.asp connected to this data source gets the error.

Cause: The server does not have a drive mapped to "H."

-or-

The Access .mdb file is on the client machine.
When creating the Global.asa, InterDev hard codes "C:\Data\MyData.MDB."

Result: Trying to browse MyPage.asp connected to this data source gets the error.

Cause: The server does not have this directory structure on drive "C".

RESOLUTION

There are three different ways you can get around the problem described above:

Run the Visual InterDev client on the Web server. Now both client and server have the same directory structures.
Make a duplicate directory structure on both client and server (that is, both machines have C:\Data\MyData.mdb.

Issue: The Data View Tab allows editing of the data, but only the client copy is being modified. The Web pages still see the server data and not the new modifications.
Put the data on the server and create a public share for the client machine to access. When creating the Data Connection, specify the UNC name (that is, \\ServerName\ShareName\MyData.mdb). For IIS 4.0 or higher, you will need to clear the check box Allow Password Syncronization for the web site in the Management Console, or you will receive a permission error.

Issue: Everyone is going to have public access to your data. You can restrict access to certain developers, but this needs to be maintained outside Visual InterDev.

REFERENCES

For the latest Knowledge Base articles and other support information on Visual InterDev and Active Server Pages, see the following page on the Microsoft Technical Support site:

http://support.microsoft.com/search/default.aspx?qu=vinterdev