FIX: Error in VBA6.DLL Using a Late Bound Recordset When at BOF or EOF

If you reference a field value in an ActiveX Data Objects (ADO) recordset when BOF or EOF is true, if you use late binding, and if you concatenate it to a string, an unhandled exception occurs in VBA6.DLL and causes an error.

Under Windows 95 or Windows 98, you receive the following error message: Under Windows NT 4.0, you receive the following Dr. Watson error: Under Windows 2000, Visual Basic quits.

If you pass a reference to an ADO field value when BOF or EOF is true, the following error message normally appears: However, if you reference a field value in an ADO recordset when BOF or EOF is true, if you use late binding, and if you concatenate it to a string, an unhandled exception occurs in VBA6.DLL and causes the above-mentioned error messages.

Microsoft has confirmed that this is a bug in the Microsoft products that are listed at the beginning of this article. This bug was corrected in Visual Basic 6.0 Service Pack 3.

Steps to Reproduce Behavior

1. Open a new Standard EXE project in Visual Basic. Form1 is created by default.
2. Place a command button on Form1.
3. Add the following code to the button's click event:

     Dim strConn As String
     Dim strSQL As String
     
     strConn = "provider=sqloledb;data source=stevenbr01;initial catalog=northwind;user id=sa;"
     strSQL = "SELECT * FROM Customers"
     
     Set cn = CreateObject("ADODB.Connection")
     Set rs = CreateObject("ADODB.Recordset")
     
     cn.Open strConn
     
     rs.CursorLocation = 3
     rs.Open strSQL, cn, 1, 1
     
     While Not rs.EOF
       For i = 0 To rs.fields.Count - 1
         If Not IsNull(rs.fields(i).Value) Then
           Debug.Print rs.fields(i).Value & ""
         End If
       Next
       rs.movenext
     Wend
      
     Debug.Print "value " & rs.fields("contactname") '<this fails
     'Debug.Print rs.fields("contactname") '<this works
   					

4. Modify the ADO connection string in the strConn variable as appropriate for your environment.
5. Run the project, and click the command button. Notice that data scrolls by in the Immediate window. When the recordset is fully read, you receive the above-mentioned error messages.
6. To see the error that should occur under these circumstances, comment the first Debug.Print line and uncomment the second one, which does not concatenate the field value to the word "value " in the print statement. Then, rerun the project.