Excel Data Connection Locks Access DB, Prevents Second Connection's Refresh

Question

I have two data connections to different queries in the same Access DB. The second one always fails (regardless of which I run first).

When I look at the database, I no

Answer 1

What you can try is changing the Mode in your connection string to

Mode=Read

instead of

Mode=Share Deny None

Answer 2

Your answer really helped me. I had the same problem, but with Excel files: an Excel file accessing another Excel (when opening) with Microsoft.ACE.OLEDB.12.0 and this datasource file getting locked (in use).

So, I removed the "refresh data when opening the file", and I replace this with your VBA code in Workbook_Open event. But I improved a little your code, because I was getting errors, since I have another ODBC connection (not OLEBD) in my workbook, I had to add this IF. Now everything works well.

Private Sub Workbook_Open()
    Dim i As Integer
    Dim awc As WorkbookConnection

    For i = 1 To ActiveWorkbook.Connections.Count
        Set awc = ActiveWorkbook.Connections.Item(i)
        If awc.Type = xlConnectionTypeOLEDB Then
            With awc.OLEDBConnection
                .EnableRefresh = True
                .BackgroundQuery = False
                .Reconnect
                .Refresh
                .MaintainConnection = False
            End With
        ElseIf awc.Type = xlConnectionTypeODBC Then
            With awc.ODBCConnection
                .EnableRefresh = True
                .BackgroundQuery = False
                .Refresh
            End With
        End If
    Next i
End Sub

Answer 3

Mode=Share Deny None/Read didn't work

I had to copy the Workbook_Open Sub

Answer 4

I was faced with another issue regarding data connections, and the solution for it actually ended up fixing this long-standing issue as well!

My guess is that the secret lies in "MaintainConnection = False":

Dim i As Integer
Dim awc As WorkbookConnection
Dim c As OLEDBConnection

For i = 0 to ActiveWorkbook.Connections.Count
    Set awc = ActiveWorkbook.Connections.Item(i)
    Set c = awc.OLEDBConnection
    c.EnableRefresh = True
    c.BackgroundQuery = False
    c.Reconnect
    c.Refresh
    c.MaintainConnection = False
Next i