"Microsoft Access Database Engine" error when launching AutoCAD Electrical + Issues writing Excel files

[Nick_Hall]

Last night my PC had some Windows & Office 365 updates and when I started AutoCAD Electrical 2022 this morning I got the following message

Getting it working again was not a smooth process, so I'm documenting it here in case anyone else has similar issues

I clicked the "Troubleshoot ..." link and followed the instructions, downloading the Microsoft Access Database Engine 2016 Redistributable, and installing it. AutoCAD Electrical 2022 started up properly again

Everything was fine until I used an add-in that uses Excel Interop to read/write XLS files, which crashed out with the following error

"Unable to cast COM object of type 'Microsoft.Office.Interop.Excel.ApplicationClass' to interface type 'Microsoft.Office.Interop.Excel._Application'"

Most suggestions from these forums & Google involve repairing Office, and reinstalling the Access Database Engine 2016, which would get me back to the same point, but would not fix the Excel issue

Using a standalone program to test Excel Interop, I found that uninstalling the Access Database Engine & repairing Office 365 would fix Excel Interop, & that it was the Access Database Engine that was breaking things

Further searching came up with this document from Microsoft - https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/office/troubleshoot/access/cannot-use-odbc-or-oledb - which explains the issue, and offers two possible solutions.

These are Microsoft 365 Access Runtime, which did not work, or Microsoft Access 2013 Runtime which allowed me to use AutoCAD Electrical 2022

In summary, these are the steps to follow if you are having issues reading & writing Excel files in AutoCAD Electrical

• Uninstall all versions of Microsoft Access Runtime
• Repair Office 365 (a quick repair worked fine for me)
• Download Microsoft Access 2013 Runtime (64 bit) from here
  https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=39358
• Install Microsoft Access 2013 Runtime

Disclaimers

I've only tested this with AutoCAD Electrical 2022 & Excel Version 2203 Build 15028.20204

I've only tested it on my computer

I've done a quick check with AutoCAD Electrical 2021 and it seems OK

This has caused me a whole day's worth of pain, but hopefully it will help someone else out

[jallenDBQ7U]

Does this help you out on the problem?

https://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/autocad/troubleshooting/caas/sfdcarticles/sfdcarticles/Error-...

[coup2792DZ7]

Someone from our IT department tried all of these yesterday but no joy.

[Lott99]

Why wasn't this communicated more openly? I have been waiting for this and didn't notice the hotfix until today

@zalant @VinodBalasubramanian

[jallenDBQ7U]

If you have a support ticket or were subscribed to receive notifications when someone posted on a thread of interest, you would have been notified by email when they posted here.  I get a notification every time someone posts on this thread (including your post).

I think the issue only impacts individuals getting office updates (especially version 365) so not everyone necessarily needs the hotfix.

[steve.clarkeEBECQ]

Yes notifications are great. But editing the registry and manually updating exe and dll files is not very good in this era. Especially when our end users do not have local admin rights. Causing huge downtime for our CAD designers.

To the best of my knowledge no notification was ever emailed to our subscription holders about this issue. A helpful person on this forum had to advise me about this issue.

[jallenDBQ7U]

I was not talking about subscription holders of the software on my post.  If you have a subscription for the software, did you create a support ticket for the issue?  By subscribing I was talking about the three dots next to a post where you can choose to subscribe to the discussion on this site.  You don't even have to post to subscribe, but posting should automatically subscribe you to the thread where you posted.  I receive notifications for each post.  If you don't, you may want to look at your profile to verify the options.

I don't speak for AutoDESK, but here is my interpretation.  I originally thought different and believed AutoDESK could have their own isolated version of the database engine and be in full control of their own software.  Unfortunately Microsoft has changed licensing since they started offering the Office 365 rented software.  Everyone who uses the Microsoft Access database (2016 or later) is now stuck with updates that only Microsoft controls.  If you look at the internet climate with ransomware, stolen data, etc it is a constant battle on updates that won't end soon.  Microsoft says nothing on their plans and has done nothing to alter the situation.  AutoDESK probably removed a check that was originally done to protect the user from other abnormalities that might occur during use of the software since Microsoft is doing nothing to change the situation.  I suspect this Hotfix is possibly not desired as a permanent solution.

With regard to registry edits I think anyone who has knowledge of software and Windows knows there is a high risk in altering the registry.  You triple confirm what you modify and make sure you have done full backups first.  We chose not to do the registry edits at our company because we have numerous licenses and the risk for IT in having multiple individuals doing these edits was not good.

[yuvaraj_jaganathan]

@Nick_Hall @jallenDBQ7U @steve.clarkeEBECQ @Lott99 @coup2792DZ7 

A hotfix is released for this issue. Can you help to apply the hotfix and confirm if the issue is fixed?

Fix available in the following link:

https://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/autocad-electrical/troubleshooting/caas/sfdcarticles/sfdcarti...

[jallenDBQ7U]

We had numerous occurrences of the problem on multiple computers before the hotfix was created.  There has been zero occurrences of the problem since we applied the hotfix several weeks ago.

The problem is solved for us.

Thank you.

[Lott99]

@jallenDBQ7U I was addressing AutoDesk personnel. Most people don't use the forums and even if they do they may not scroll through every page and comment to find a link to a hotfix. Literally every one I know that uses AutoCAD Electrical has this issue right now.

[coup2792DZ7]

Issues Resolved by This Update
This Hotfix address following issue:
• AutoCAD Electrical could not successfully launch after the Microsoft® Office update

This is not my issue. My Electrical 2021 launches and works but I cannot create data-links. This hotfix mentions nothing about fixing the data-links issue. Can you or is somebody else able to confirm if this hotfix fixes the issue with data-links on a machine which does not have the engine issue on launch?

Thanks.

[jallenDBQ7U]

I understand that and multiple individuals from AutoDesk are likely subscribed to this thread to see your opinion. 

I do disagree so my opinion counts too.  Not everyone has this issue.  I work at a company with numerous licenses and did fully research the subject (including Microsoft's website). 

I don't want notices for every hotfix and knowledgebase link they create to solve problems.  I can find them here, Google, or support ticket.  If they create a service pack or upgrade then I do get that notice in my AutoCAD Desktop App.

[Nick_Hall]

I've tested it on AcadE 2021 & 2022 without any problems

Also one of my colleagues has passed it on to a customer to fix their issue successfully

[bknightALS4H]

I'm managing a small team of people and we are having similar but slightly different issues I believe all stemming from the Access DB issue.

For all three of us this issue has been a frustration for the past few weeks after whatever Office update.

All Windows 10 x64 Pro, with Office 365 64-bit installed. We have jumped between 2020, 2022, and 2023 versions of AutoCAD Electrical with similar issues.

We all applied the hotfix and that has resolved the initial issue of the error message on startup that asked to install the 64-bit version of the Access DB. For some time I was getting by with applying the registry fix that was posted prior to the hot-fix.

At this point, none of us are getting the error at startup about the Access database error.

However two of my three users are getting crashes whenever an ACADE specific tool appears to request a database read or write. They are getting some form of the attached error message.

"FATAL ERROR: Unhandled Access Violation Writing 0x0050 Exception at {random string}" The random string at the end is always different but the 0x0050 is consistent. 

They have been seeing this when creating or opening projects through the project manager, when doing a tag name lookup on insertion or update of components, when selecting parts through the catalog, etc. Basically it appears to be any function that requests something of Access it crashes. All the basic AutoCAD functions work. This is quite frustrating as this basically has rendered the Electrical tool subset unusable.

Not sure what else to try at this point. 

[rhesusminus]

Are the support files (like the scratch database) located locally, or on some server? (redirection for APPDATA folder etc.)
Are the projects locate on a server, or locally?

If you "uninstall/repair" the hotfix, install the access database engine etc... Do you still get  this problem?

[ldetzler]

Nick_Hall's solution works for ACAD Electrical 2021 IF you remove the " AutoCAD Electrical (2020 to 2023) database connection Hotfix Installation". 

With the Hotfix applied I was still receiving the "Microsoft Access Database Engine" error upon opening AutoCAD Electrical 2021. I removed the hotfix AceDriverTest.exe file and restored the original AceDriverTest.exe file. Everything works now.