Excel Data Connection errors on Refresh

Question

Solved! See below for solution!

I\'m in Excel 2010 connecting to multiple, seperate Access 2010 db\'s from Excel through PivotTable dat

Answer 1

This is not a full answer, but an attempt to help debug, so that hopefully we can arrive at a solution.

I believe you can solve this issue by debugging the Connections. Try replacing your Refresh code above (and the replacement with DoEvents) with the following Sub. First, it is possible that displaying the dialog between Refreshes will fix the problem (if the problem is concurrent refreshes, etc). Second, each time it runs, check carefully that nothing has changed. Please report back with any discoveries or info. If you still get the errors, step through the code and report back the line that raises the error.

Sub ShowDebugDialog()

   Dim x As Integer
   Dim i As Integer, j As Integer
   Dim awc As WorkbookConnection
   Dim c As OLEDBConnection

   For i = 1 To ActiveWorkbook.Connections.Count
   'For i = ActiveWorkbook.Connections.Count To 1 Step -1

      For j = 1 To ActiveWorkbook.Connections.Count
         Set awc = ActiveWorkbook.Connections.Item(j)
         Set c = awc.OLEDBConnection
         x = MsgBox("ConnectionName: " & awc.Name & vbCrLf & _
              "IsConnected: " & c.IsConnected & vbCrLf & _
              "BackgroundQuery: " & c.BackgroundQuery & vbCrLf & _
              "MaintainConnection: " & c.MaintainConnection & vbCrLf & _
              "RobustConnect: " & c.RobustConnect & vbCrLf & _
              "RefreshPeriod: " & c.RefreshPeriod & vbCrLf & _
              "Refreshing: " & c.Refreshing & vbCrLf & _
              "EnableRefresh: " & c.EnableRefresh & vbCrLf & _
              "Application: " & c.Application & vbCrLf & _
              "UseLocalConnection: " & c.UseLocalConnection _
              , vbOKOnly, "Debugging")
      Next j

      Set awc = ActiveWorkbook.Connections.Item(i)
      Set c = awc.OLEDBConnection
      c.EnableRefresh = True
      c.BackgroundQuery = False
      c.Reconnect
      c.Refresh
      awc.Refresh
      c.MaintainConnection = False
   Next i

End Sub

Additional questions you can answer if you're still getting errors:

• Was BackgroundQuery always false?
• Was there a perceptable delay between each set of dialogs (indicating Excel is waiting for a refresh to complete) or did they all come up immediately after the last one?
• Which line of code raises the initial error? If you refresh the Connections in backwards order (by uncommenting the "Step -1" line) do you get the error at the same connection?
• When you say you can update the connections manually, is this through a different macro or through Data >> Connections >> Refresh?
• Any errors if you manually select "RefreshAll"?

Sorry for all the questions but you have to think of everything when debugging nasty connection errors like this.