When working on Microsoft Access, you may encounter the “Microsoft Access application keeps freezing or crashing” issue. Microsoft Access may crash or freeze while opening a report due to different reasons. In this article, we will cover the reasons behind the frequent crashing of Microsoft Access and various methods to fix the issue.
Why Does Microsoft Access Keep Crashing While Opening Report?
This issue can occur due to one or more of the below reasons:
- You might be trying to open the corrupted reports.
- There are damaged queries or macros.
- Your Antivirus might be conflicting with the application on the system.
- Issue with the images or other OLE object fields in the report.
- Corrupted binary data in the report.
Effective Methods to Fix the Microsoft Access Keeps Crashing Issue
You may face this issue if your Antivirus program is conflicting with the Microsoft Access application. If this is the case, you can temporarily stop the antivirus and see if it resolves the issue. If it does not help, then try the below methods.
Method 1: Check OLE Object Fields
You may encounter issues with your Access database if you try to open the report with OLE object fields. OLE (Object Linking and Embedding) is one of the methods of image handing in Access. It is very common to get errors when using this method to display images in the reports as this technique can increase the size of the data. To fix this, you can save the images to the standard location and then store the image path in the text field of the report.
Method 2: Remove Binary Data from Reports
Microsoft Access may crash or freeze while opening report if you have stored the binary data in the report. You can remove the binary data from the report to fix the issue.
Here are the steps:
- Save the affected report in text format and use Notepad to open it.
- Search and delete the “Checksum=” line in the file.
- Next, find and delete the following binary data:
- NameMap
- PrtDevMode
- PrtMip
- PrtDevNames
- PrtDevNamesW
- PrtDevModeW
- Now scroll down the file to check other issues in the VBA module code (if any). If found, then delete it.
- Save the file and then open the Access application.
- Run the query “Application.LoadFromText” in the VBA to load the modified file.
- Then, Decompile/Compact Repair/Recompile it.
- Now open the report to check whether the issue is fixed or not. If not, then follow the next solution.
Method 3: Check your System’s Memory Usage
Sometimes, “Microsoft Access keeps crashing while opening report” issue occurs if your system is low on memory. You can open the Task Manager to check the memory usage.
Here are the steps:
- Press the Ctrl+Shift+Esc keys simultaneously to open the Task Manager window.
- In the Task Manager window, click the Performance tab and then select the Memory option.
- In the Memory window, you will see the information related to memory, such as memory speed, available RAM, RAM usage, etc.
- Then, click on the Processes tab to see the tasks that are consuming more RAM. Once you find the process, right-click on it and then click End Task.
Method 4: Repair Access Database
Corruption in the database file can also cause the MS Access application to crash every time you try to access it. You can fix the issue by using the “Compact and Repair” tool in MS Access.
Here are the steps:
- In Microsoft Access, double-click on the Blank Database option on the template page.
- Click on File and then Close.
- Click Database Tools and then click Compact and Repair Database.
- The Database to Compact From window is displayed. Click on the database (in which you are getting the issue) and double-click on it.
- A copy of the repaired database will be created at the location where the database file is located.
If you are unable to fix the issue, then you can use a reliable Access database recovery tool, such as Stellar Repair for Access. This do-it-yourself tool helps you repair the corrupted Access database file and recover all the data from the corrupted database. It supports database files created using MS Access 2019, 2016, 2013, 2010, 2007, 2003, and 2002. You can download the free trial version of the software to scan the corrupt database and preview the recoverable objects.
To Conclude
This article mentioned the methods to troubleshoot and fix the “Microsoft Access keeps crashing” issue. If your Microsoft Access is crashing due to corruption in the database file, then repair the database using Microsoft’s Compact and Repair tool. If it does not resolve the issue, then try a third-party Access database recovery tool, such as Stellar Repair for Access. It uses an effective algorithm to scan and repair the corrupted database file. The tool is compatible with Windows 11, 10, 8.1, 8, and 7.
Add Comment