Summary
Attempting to start Commence and open the selected database results in the following message: An error occurred while opening database 'database name'.  Commence will now exit. Info 105.

This error is sometimes accompanied by:  An error was encountered while re-indexing database 'database name'. Commence will now exit (INFO-514)

More Information

• The Windows logged in user MUST have admin permissions to the local machine.  If the login is not granted this permissions, the info 105 error will happen when they attempt to open a database.
  
• Check the file size of metadata.pim; if this is 0 bytes the file is damaged.  This file is vital to the database and points to all the other database files.  Without it the user will not be able to open the database.  Try to find a backup of the database to restore from.  Otherwise re-enroll the client to get a fresh copy of the database from the server.
  
• If the data directory was copied from a CD, check the properties of the database folder and data files.  If any files or directories have the Read Only attribute selected remove this property and attempt to open the database again.

Additional troubleshooting tips
Try to open a different database by modifying the properties of your Commence shortcut. Append '/prompt' as a command line option after commence.exe in the Target box. This will prompt you for which database to open. Run Commence from this shortcut, then choose a different database to open to verify this works properly.

Try using another compression tool such as WinZip to backup the Commence data folder. Just be sure you open a different Commence database before using an external backup tool. This will ensure no files are locked or in use while the backup is being made.

To attempt to repair the data try moving the data to a new directory.
- Make a new backup of the problem database (the one that you are unable to open) using the Commence backup tool or another compression tool.
- Add a new database using the Open/Manage Database command, then click Add to create a new data folder.
- Restore from the latest backup to this new folder.

If no error message appears in the active.log file for the database, try booting Commence directly into the affected database (as opposed to using /prompt to select the database, or using Open/Manage database to open the database later).  Then look at active.log in Windows directory.

Applies To

• all desktop versions