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# ACC: How to Find Access Basic Error Codes

Article ID: 105666

Article Last Modified on 5/6/2003

APPLIES TO

- Microsoft Access 1.0 Standard Edition
- Microsoft Access 1.1 Standard Edition
- Microsoft Access 2.0 Standard Edition

This article was previously published under Q105666
Moderate: Requires basic macro, coding, and interoperability skills.

## SUMMARY

The Microsoft Access manuals do not contain a listing of all the error codes and messages you can receive when you are running custom Access Basic functions. To obtain the error codes and messages, you can run a custom Access Basic function and use the Microsoft Access Help system.

## MORE INFORMATION

This article assumes that you are familiar with Access Basic and with creating Microsoft Access applications using the programming tools provided with Microsoft Access. For more information on Access Basic, please refer to the "Introduction to Programming" manual in Microsoft Access version 1.x, or the "Building Applications" manual, Chapter 3, "Introducing Access Basic" in version 2.0.
There are approximately 700 error messages that can result from running Access Basic code. To print a list of the error values and descriptions to the Immediate window, add the sample function below to a module:

       Function PrintErrorStrings ()
          For i = 1 To 32766
             E$ = Error$(i)
             If E$ <> "User-defined error" And E$ <> "Reserved Error" Then
                Debug.Print i; Error$(i)
             End If
          Next i
       End Function

The following example demonstrates how to save the error code list in a table:

1. Create a new table with the following fields. Save the table as Error Codes:

             Table Name: Error Table
             -----------------------
             Field Name: Err
                Data Type: Number
                Field Size: Integer
             Field Name: Error
                Data Type: Text
                Field Size: 255

2. Create the following function in a new module.

             Function FillErrorTable()
                Dim MyDB As Database, MyTable As Recordset
                Dim i As Integer
                Dim e$

                Set MyDB = CurrentDb()
                Set MyTable = MyDB.OpenRecordset("Error Codes")

                For i = 1 To 32766
                   e$ = Error$(i)
                   If e$ <> "User-defined Error" And e$ <> "Reserved Error" Then
                      MyTable.AddNew
                      MyTable![Err] = i
                      MyTable![Error] = e$
                      MyTable.UPDATE
                    End If
                Next i
                MyTable.Close
                MyDB.Close
             End Function

3. Type the following line in the Immediate window, and then press ENTER:
   `? FillErrorTable()`

The error codes and descriptions will be written to the Error Codes table.
The Microsoft Access Help system contains descriptions of the errors. However, the error values are not in the Help system. To determine the error value, match the description to the values returned by the FillErrorTable() function.

## REFERENCES

For more information about error messages, search for "error messages: reference," and then "Error Messages Reference" using the Microsoft Access Help menu.

Additional query words: error messages

Keywords: kbhowto kbprogramming KB105666