We’ve gotten reports of an Office update adversely impacting existing applications that uses Access database to store data and is shared on a network location. Because of the update, people no longer can connect to same Access database file. With the update, only one can use the shared Access database at a time. Microsoft has acknowledged the problem and has a fix in place, but you may need to apply it manually:
Error in Access when opening a database on a network share
If your application is using SQL Server database, you are not impacted by this. However, if your application use Access databases to store data and that database is shared with other users using a shared folder, you will be impacted by this update. Refer to linked article at end of the message for checking whether you are running an impacted build. The impacted versions are listed below.
Microsoft 365 Apps:
Current Channel Version 2111, build 14701.20248
Monthly Enterprise Channel Version 2110, build 14527.20340
Monthly Enterprise Channel Version 2109, build 14430.20380
Semi-Annual Enterprise Channel (Preview) Version 2108, build 14326.20692
Semi-Annual Enterprise Channel Version 2102, build 13801.21086
Semi-Annual Enterprise Channel Version 2008, build 13127.21842
If you are running an older or a perpetual version of Office, you may need to check the Windows update for KB:
KB 5002104 for Office 2013
KB 5002099 for Office 2016
Office 2019 Version 1808, build 10381.20020
Office LTSC 2021 Version 2108, build 14332.20204
Another thanks for posting this article. This past month, Dec-2021, the IT Team installed an update to MS-Office and when we opened the Front-end DB to do updates
we were receiving the “message file already in use”. The MS Patch KB5002099 was removed, and the problem was resolved.
Keep up the Great Work.
As my company (really big one) rule the updating i’m not able to uninstall and rollback to old situation nor install de patch so about 15 users here have got stuck with this issue. Microsoft points that the problem is yet solved but doesn’t tell the exact code of the patch that solves it. Just “installing office updates” is supposed to fix it. Hope and pray the fix come with the january updates of my company. We feel really upset with this. https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/error-in-access-when-opening-a-database-on-a-network-file-share-6cbc1560-62c2-46e7-9980-d079a46f5acc
Apologies for the delay in the response. I totally sympathize with you and that is one of reasons we encourage clients to stick to enterprise channel to minimize incidents like this. Unfortunately because this was a security-related fix, it affects all channels.
Thanks for posting this article. I recently ran into a problem where the Access frontend (2019) refused to create a link to the Access backend. It was new behaviour with no apparent reason for the spontaneous change. The problem seemed similar enough to that described in the article to give it a try… No joy… So I created a brand-new frontend test database, and it worked. One glaring difference was that the test database used the “native” folder to the backend while the original frontend referenced the backend via a symbolic link. Then I tried relinking the original frontend using the “native” folder, and it worked too! Then tried again using the symbolic link to the folder, and that also worked.
In the end, I have no idea why it failed, and then worked, without making any changes to the frontend database. Only difference was the reference to the folder where the backend was located. Your article put me on the path to solving a perplexing problem.