getting an Unexpected error from external database

Question

I have a 2010 Excel file with a sheet that spans 34864 rows and 1387 columns. I'm trying to import it into Access 2010 with the import wizard, but when I select that sheet, Access goes unresponsive, and after several seconds gives me a

"Unexpected error from external database driver (1)"

Is this due to the size of the sheet or is there something in the cells that stops it from working. Other sheets from the same file import with no problem.

Answer 1

Download and install the Microsoft Access Database Engine 2010 Redistributable, and then modify the DB connection strings in Microsoft Excel to use ACE as a provider.

Change (example):

Provider=Microsoft.Jet.OLEDB.4.0

to:

Provider=Microsoft.ACE.OLEDB.12.0.

Microsoft is working on a resolution and will provide an update in an upcoming release.

Answer 2

I had the exact same error. The spreadsheet was created from another software (SAP). Since it was not created by Office, Excel was not able to read it (!?!). I have to open them in Excel, save it, and then load it in Access and it works! As a worst case scenario, let's say you have dozens of files, you could just open and close them by VBA code before import.

Answer 3

Check out this for Access 2010 specification: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/access-help/access-2010-specifications-HA010341462.aspx.

In your case, it might be number of columns, so try to import less than 255 first. Also, it might be the size of the data in the columns or data types (importing text into numeric etc.)

Answer 4

Along the lines of RHiggins answer:

In my case Jet OleDb.4.0 threw this error (oledbconnection.open()) because the name of a worksheet in a workbook (.xls) was too long.

Answer 5

In my case the spreadsheet was linked to another spreadsheet. I was importing a subset of the original sheet. I created a new sheet and copied the data column by column to notepad and then to the new sheet removing the links. There was something in the links which was causing the problem.
BTW: it was this one set of data since I've done this import sequence from this one spreadsheet to this database more than 50 times. Halving the data worked for the first (larger) half of the data, but not for the second.

Answer 6

hi I am also facing this error when import .xlsb file. After that i copied the contents to another xlsx file then import this xlsx file.