pfhtreadpool.cpp, line 970, function PFThreadPool::QueueWorkItemMultiple

If you get this error it is very simple:
Your Power Query in Excel is tired.
Restart your computer (or at least, log off and log back on again)

Remind me to never use access again....

I came back from Maternity Leave, all enthusiasm. It lasted of course only a few weeks, and then I was asked to help with a "Training Record System"; as an in-house developer, if they ask for something to record the training of the employees in the company, I said yes. It's called a "can do" attitude and people really appreciate it. And because I felt a little bit rusty, I decided to use Access as front end and SQL as the back end. I can do that with my eyes closed, right?
And then I was easily reminded of the joys of working with Access.
A basic form with two sub forms, and a combo box on top which is linked to them. The first sub form contains the details of the course, the second sub form contains the details of the participants. So when I first added details to the course sub form (the top one) (On new record) I would get the very descriptive

You can't assign a value to this object

with all sort of non relevat reasons.

And then I pressed "ok" and continued to edit the report.

It slightly help to add the following code to the sub form

And that resolved it temporarily.

So I managed to put all the course details without getting any annoying error messages, and then when I moved from the "course" part details to the "participants" part details, just to get the following error:

ODBC -- call failed

[Microsoft][ODBC SQL Server Driver]Optional feature not implemented (#0)

So I looked this problem up and found myself on #2 in Google! Well, that only shows how rusty I am! I only needed to refresh the underlying table this time in order to sort out the problem (I knew it's not the ODBC driver as yesterday it worked...).



One more thing (basic but good to know):
If you get the
"The expression you entered has a function name that Microsoft Office Access can't find"
error. 
Sometime it is just due to the fact that a Macro must refer a Public function (not a Sub!) in a module. And the function's name should be different than the Module Name. And of course, make sure you've spelled the word correctly. For a Function that could be written as a sub just do this

Public Function Foo () AS Integer
'Do Something
      Foo = 1
End Function

I Also downloaded this
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/confirmation.aspx?id=6627
in order to set up the Menu item. Ho, the good old MS Access 2003 days! You can find a code example of how to add a side menu to a report here. As for manipulating the Ribbon for better functionality; sorry, it requires messing with the Registry, an absolute no-no in my view. I really don't think it is even slightly necessary.



Another Example:

Working on an older database, running a trusted code and Receiving
Error: Record is deleted, (3167) encountered.
Apparently I needed to do Compact and Repair

Another Example:

I've placed a copy of an Access MDB file on the Network so everyone can share the joy.
So I run it and it doesn't let you run the product from the Network, you need to add it to the Trust Center.
So I go File -> Options -> Trust Center -> Trust Center Settings ->Trusted Locations
And I add a new location.

It tells me that I'm not allowed ("The remote or network path you have entered is not allowed by your current security settings.")
And I need to check the "check "Allow trusted locations on my network (not recommended)" 

So:
If you want to run Access from the Network is not recommended.
Which means that Access isn't a corporate product! Ask MS if you don't believe me!

The issues is this, but really, really, please:
How come that if I'm working on a Trusted product, Like SQL or C#, I rarely rarely google my problems, and I hardly ever get "weird" error messages, while 10 minutes into using MS-Access I Google like crazy?

My first cursor - faster than SET based operation

Of course, you should NEVER write cursor. Especially not for SQL server. Or so I was told.

The rational behind the code

I believe people hate them so much because usually you might find them in some legacy code, where there could be some other proper SET based operations, or at least they might exist nowadays. Nobody likes legacy code. Nothing too delightful about jumping into code that you don't know and you didn't write. Another reason is of course, for the usual T-SQL code that you write some smart people wrote optimizer for. If you run a Cursor the optimizer cannot kick in, so it's likely that the code would run slower.

But sometimes you do need to write cursors. The main use is when you need to go row by row. Then why not use client side programs, like C# or VB? Well, maybe it's because the developer feels more competent using SQL than by using C#? That's been my excuse for writing the code below.
So I had to go row by row for a one off. My SQL skills exceed my C# skills. I needed to run this code once and that's all. So I choose to write a cursor.

What does it do?

There had been some duplicated rows of data in the "attachment" table. The data is a file, saved in the "content" column as varbinary(VARMAX), and I just wanted to make sure that the duplicated file name didn't stem from a different files, but rather, represented the same file on multiple instances. I've made sure that all attachments were saved to a new table called "multiple_attachment" when "min_attachid" is the ref (there's obviously another field called "file name" which I didn't bother with this time).
Since it's hard to trace errors in Cursor I've added the "INSERT" statement.
Using SET based operation would not be quicker (tested!) due to the INNER JOIN of a table on itself, on top of the expensive operation of comparing varbinary(max).

The code

DECLARE first_cursor CURSOR
FOR
SELECT content, attachid, min_attachmentid
FROM dbo.multiple_attachment
WHERE attachid <> min_attachmentid

DECLARE @content VARBINARY (max)
DECLARE @attachid BIGINT
DECLARE @min_attachid BIGINT

OPEN first_cursor

FETCH NEXT FROM first_cursor
INTO @content, @attachid, @min_attachid

WHILE @@FETCH_STATUS = 0
BEGIN
IF @content <> (SELECT content
FROM dbo.attachment
WHERE attachid = @min_attachid)
INSERT  [dbo].[trace_errors]
           ([attachid])
     SELECT (@attachid)

FETCH NEXT FROM first_cursor
END

CLOSE first_cursor
DEALLOCATE first_cursor

A problem:

The code above got stuck with the error "An error occurred while executing batch. Error message is: Error creating window handle."
because there were over 2000 lines in the table and there was a limit to how much "Display Result" window panes you can create. For every line it produced a new message! the solution was to disable the results pane in the Query Option (Query -> Query Options -> Results
choose "Discard results after execution" in SQL Server 2012). The above proc run much quicker and I would recommend setting this option each time you need to write a Cursor.

the query could not be processed query canceled press f9 to restart the query and display data

If you get the above error, or the error:
The query could not be processed: o The data provider didn't supply any other error information
While browsing in you SSAS cube browser, 
I highly recommend the classic solution:
Log off and then log on again.