FP2002: Cannot Use the FrontPage Database Editor with Databases Created by FrontPage

You may be unable to use the Microsoft FrontPage Database Interface to edit records in a database that you created to store the results from a form created in FrontPage.

When you attempt to save edited records, you may receive the following error message: You may also receive the following error message and the changes are not saved to the database.

This behavior can occur because databases created through the properties of forms in Microsoft FrontPage 2000 or Microsoft FrontPage 2002 cannot be used directly with the Database Interface Wizard in FrontPage 2002. The reason for this is that the Timestamp field, which is mandatory in such a database, is a SQL data-type and must be enclosed in brackets if used as a column name in a database query.

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For more information about the support options that are available and about how to contact Microsoft, visit the following Microsoft Web site:http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=fh;EN-US;CNTACTMS To work around this issue, modify the page code produced by the Database Interface Wizard so that it works correctly. To do this, follow these steps:

1. Open the Web in FrontPage.
2. In the Folder list, click the plus sign (+) next to myConnection_interface, where myConnection is the name of the database connection in FrontPage.
3. Click the plus sign next to Results.
4. Click the plus sign next to editor.
5. Double-click update.asp, and then click the HTML tab.
6. Find the line beginning with the following

   <!--webbot bot="DatabaseRegionStart" ...
   					

   and in that line, find the following clause:

   Timestamp = '::Timestamp::'
   					

7. Edit that clause so that it reads as follows:

   [Timestamp] = '::Timestamp::'
   					

8. Save the page.

Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem in the Microsoft products that are listed at the beginning of this article.

This behavior occurs because the database created by FrontPage automatically includes a field named Timestamp, and you do not have the option to remove that field when the database is created. Timestamp is a reserved numeric type in SQL. Therefore, when the Update query in the Database Editor is run, an error message is generated.

The behavior described here arises within the operation of FrontPage, but you may encounter similar issues if you use databases that have been created by other means and that use reserved words as the names of columns in tables or in queries. It is best to avoid the use of reserved words entirely, but if that is impossible, the workaround described here (enclose the column name in the delimiters [ and ]) may be helpful.