Nathan;

This has probably never happened to you but... Have you ever had ES running and you tried to open ES again... Well you get this little window that says...

Failed to connect to settings DB.
This may be because;
*You do not have the Jet Database engine and has locked the Database
*See the users Guide for more info;

Well i have done this before and that is the window that appears. The problem is that on my laptop i am getting this message without trying to run a second copy.

I have had this problem before, and all i did was shut down the computer and restart and everything was fine. It did not work this time. I also tried taking out my battery and draining the memory and that did not work.

HELP,

Mitch

Ps.. I tried installing build 18. Then shutting off the computer, restarting and i still get that message.

Mitch,

Very odd. You can't run two instances of ES (from the same location) because the settings db is locked for single use.
I can understand an instance of ES getting "caught" and not shutting down completely - hence the problem might occur once in a while. If this happens, however, chances are that some other program is interfering with ES shutting down. Someone else (was it your Ralph?) once and I forgot what the culprit was...).

But -- to restart the computer and see that problem - that's bizarre. Go to your Windows Task Manager (Ctrl-Alt-Delete, then click Task Manager). Go to the "processes" tab. Look for "ESROI5.EXE" in the "image name" column. If it's there, select it and then click "end process". Then try to start ES.

If it is NOT there, then something might be amiss with your Jet Database components on that computer. Something you recently installed may have screwed them up, or (?). After the QUICK check to see if another instance of ES is already running (above), try re-installing the Jet DB engine and see if that fixes the problem.

I had this same problem. Nothing would fix it. I finally had nathan send me the Jet Database again.......reinstalled it and it fixed it. I later found out that I had done something to the database when I installed a shareware app.

Of course I found out by installing the shareware app again........and getting the same problem. That app went away and reinstalling the jet database fixed it, again.......

This is very strange. I Went to the "processes" tab and ESROI5.EXE was not there. There was a ton of other stuff but not ES. Also from the ES Version 4 CD i installed the jet database. That did not work either. Should i go to add-remove programs and Delete, Data Access Objects(DAO)3.5
and then reinstsll from version 4 CD?

The only other thing i can think of is uninstalling ESV5 completely and then reinstalling. If i did this, i guess i would download ESV5 from the download site and then copy my templates and database from my desktop to my laptop, right?

I am leaving the house in about a hour and will not be back till late afternoon to try to resolve this.

Thanks for any help,

Mitch

A) Restart you computer.
B) Go to the ESROI5 folder and change this file name to something differnet. Change:
C:\program files\thorotech\ESROI5\settings.sdb
to
C:\program files\thorotech\ESROI5\settings.old
C) Download this file:
http://www.thorostore.com/Demos/settings.sdb
and put it here:
C:\program files\thorotech\ESROI5\settings.sdb

See if the program will start. If it does, it means there was a problem with the settings.sdb file. It either became corrupt - or for some reason some other program, or the db engine, was holding on to the settings.sdb file and wouldn't let it go.

NOTE -- Don't just re-install, or uninstall/re-install, ES, as this will NOT remove the existing Settings.sdb file.

Thanks Nathan;

I should of paid a little closer attention to your post. My fault. I had a litle scare when i just replaced settings.sdb, when i should of re-named. I now understand after the fact what settings.sdb actually does. It worked but i lost everything. When i started ES it was like starting anew. Since my Desktop and laptop ES setting are the same. I went over to my Desktop and copied the settings.sdb and put that file into my laptop. Everything seems fine now.

Thank you,

Mitch

Nathan,

This is happening to me as well. I checked in Task manager and there is not another copy of ES running. I tried to reinstall the Jet engine and it says there is a program using DAO. I could not get the jet engine to install in safe mode.

Do you know anyway to find out what is using DAO? Any registry settings to look at? I tried stopping services and could not find the right one to stop.

I can get to the ES databases using Access without any trouble.

Did you try the info posted above (reproduced below). It solved Mitch's problem - it was a corrupted settings.sdb.

NOTE - one piece not in the original info - if it's the settings.sdb file/db, you might be able to recover it. Once you get ES running you can go to the Profiler DB menu->DB Utilities->COmpact and Repair. Use that utility on the OLD (renamed) settings.sdb. When the tool finishes, reverse the steps above and see if the program will start with the original (now hopefully fixed) settings.sdb file (if any of the settings in that file are meaningful - essentially just the look and feel of the app along with the "Power Move" info).

A) Restart you computer.
B) Go to the ESROI5 folder and change this file name to something differnet. Change:
C:\program files\thorotech\ESROI5\settings.sdb
to
C:\program files\thorotech\ESROI5\settings.old
C) Download this file:
http://www.thorostore.com/Demos/settings.sdb
and put it here:
C:\program files\thorotech\ESROI5\settings.sdb

See if the program will start. If it does, it means there was a problem with the settings.sdb file. It either became corrupt - or for some reason some other program, or the db engine, was holding on to the settings.sdb file and wouldn't let it go.

NOTE -- Don't just re-install, or uninstall/re-install, ES, as this will NOT remove the existing Settings.sdb file.

Nathan,

I tried this last night and it did not work. I'll try again. But I do have a few questions:

I do not see a settings.sdb file. There are two "settings" files, both display without extensions. One is a BIN file and the other is an Appfix Package. Anyway, I tried the compact utility found in Access on the BIN file and received a message stating The Microsoft Jet engine database cannot open the file "C\Program Files\Thorotech\ESROI15\settings.bin" It is already opened exclusively by another user or you need permission to view its data.

Still doesn't connect but now ES says "Failed to connect to Settings DB".

Progress I suppose.