Access 2003 or Access 2002 stops responding with an error message that references the Msaccess.exe file when you open a database file (819780)

Thank You for Your Help!

Microsoft thanks you for taking the time to send us information about the program error that you just experienced. After investigating error reports provided by users like you, our engineers devised a workaround for this problem. This article contains information that may help you avoid this problem in the future.

Error Signature

This article describes a program error that can have the following error signatures:

App Name         App Version       Module Name     Module Version     Offset
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Msaccess.exe     11.0.4920.5       Msaccess.exe    11.0.4920.5        000cd42c

In this signature, the App Version and the Module Version is a number equal to or greater than 11.0.4920.5.

SYMPTOMS

When you try to open a Microsoft Access database file (.mdb) in Microsoft Office Access 2003 or in Microsoft Access 2002, you may receive the following error message, and Access 2003 or Access 2002 may stop responding:

Microsoft Office Access has encountered a problem and needs to close.

Note To view the details of the error signature, click the link in the following text:

What does this error report contain?

When you view the data in the error report, the report contains an error signature that is similar to the one that is listed at the beginning of this article.

CAUSE

This problem occurs when both of the following conditions are true:

The database file that you are trying to open is read-only.
The database file contains Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) code that is executed when you open the file and that contains a reference to a printer that cannot be resolved. The printer may be offline or removed from the network.

WORKAROUND

To work around this problem, follow these steps.

Note These steps use the undocumented /decompile switch to decompile the Access 2003 or the Access 2002 database.

Right-click the database file, and then click Properties.
In the Properties dialog box, on the General tab, click to clear the Read-only check box, and then click OK.
Click Start, and then click Run.
Type the following command:
msaccess.exe "drive\path\file name.mdb" /decompile
Note In this command, drive is the drive in which the Access 2003 or Access 2002 database file resides, path is the path of the Access 2003 or Access 2002 database file, and file name is the name of the Access 2003 or Access 2002 database file.
Click OK.