Representation in a personal geodatabase will not drop

[TimLangner]

Hi there

I am trying to drop two representations from a personal geodatabase. Each one referring to a different feature class.

Whenever I try though, I just get the error messages about the schema being locked by the user ADMIN. Now the computer name listed is my computer and I am the only person logged onto it as far as I am aware. I am using ArcMap 10.0.4 and I am running Windows XP SP3. I did have two copies of the MXD open but I closed both of them down before opening up just one of them and trying this. Either way it made no difference.

Has anyone else ever come across this and would someone please be able to tell me what I might be doing wrong?

The messages are:
Executing: DropRepresentation "Personal_geodatabase\Feature_class_to_drop
Start Time: Thu Jun 27 16:47:19 2013
ERROR 999999: Error executing function.
Can't acquire an exclusive schema lock
Cannot acquire a schema lock because of an existing lock.
You attempted to open a database that is already opened exclusively by user 'ADMIN' on machine 'Name_of_machine'.  Try again when the database is available.
Failed to execute (DropRepresentation).
Failed at Thu Jun 27 16:47:19 2013 (Elapsed Time: 0.00 seconds)


Kind regards


Tim

[MichaelHornes]

Tim,

I am getting the same message when I try add fields to a FC within a personal mdb on our network drive.  When I make a copy of the mdb and add the copied FC, I can do all the adding I want.  I have about 10 .ldb files in various folders on our network.  I have tried to delete them manually, but it says that it is being used in another application.  A previous thread suggested going to Microsoft's web page and under sysintall download a free Process Explorer and that it would see what application was locking the files.  For me, I wasn't able to see a program that was running any GIS applications, as I had shut them all down. 

  We don't run SDE as we are a small municipality, so our issue may not apply to you.  When I talked with ESRI, I was told it was a problem within my antivirus software.  That the antivirus software is what was keeping the locks in place.  We needed to shut off our antivirus and then recheck the locks.  Our IT said that was not the case and that this happened after we upgraded to 10.1.  So, I am stuck in between the two immovable, infallible forces, IT and ESRI.  Good luck.  If I find a solution I will post it here.

[TimLangner]

I think my problem went away. Probably after I restarted my computer. I don't feel that is a good solution to problems, as it doesn't solve the cause but it does work from time to time.