Error: ACL Desktop cannot complete this function

When you’re trying to load a new file into an ACL table, you’ll sometimes get this error:: “Application error. ACL Desktop cannot complete this function…contact ACL Technical Support…” (see below).

Here’s the situations in which I’ve encountered this error, and how I’ve fixed it (most common and easiest to fix situations are first).

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ACL tip: “Unfreezing ACL”

Occasionally when using ACL, the application appears to freeze when I open a dialog box. So I restart ACL and it works fine until I repeat the action that “froze” it in the first place. For me, it always happens when I open the Edit Layout dialog box to create a computed field. Never any other window.

Or in ACL terms, also known as “What happened to the Edit Layout screen?”

Note to non-ACL users: This problem isn’t particular to ACL, so you might want to read the “Finding the Cause” topic below before you blow off this post entirely.

I’ve noticed that this only occurs after I last used ACL on a 2-monitor system. The setup I normally use is my laptop screen plus an additional monitor.  But when I’m at home or on the road and only have my laptop, fire up ACL, and go to Edit, Layout, the problem occurs: apparent ACL freeze with every other application working.

ACL tip: Rerun a Join Easily

Rerunning an ACL join command is much easier than most people realize.  And everyone using ACL screws up joining two tables more often than he’ll admit.

It goes like this: You painfully select the primary keys, the secondary keys, the primary fields, and the secondary fields, enter the output table name, and run the join. The join ran successfully, but you forgot to add one primary field or to adjust the options on the More tab. Now you have to do it all again. Or do you?