Access Navigation Pane too narrow

Copper Contributor

Access Navigation pane too narrow and cannot be fixed by any suggestions made here or elsewhere on the internet.  Numerous phone and chat communications with Microsoft have been a huge waste of time.  I have another PC with MS 365, and this problem does not exist.  Both machines are Win11

16 Replies
Sometimes a screenshot is a really helpful way to illustrate problems. That's the case here, if you can provide one. Thanks.

Hi,

 

> cannot be fixed by any suggestions made here or elsewhere on the internet

 

That doesn't really tell what you have tried. In order to get different suggestions you should provide a list of what didn't help so far.

 

Servus
Karl
Access News
Access DevCon

@Karl Donaubauer 

Uninstalled and reinstalled MS365

Tried both repair methods, fast and internet

Did clean restart, only MS files and apps

Invoked Power Shell and executed commands given by MS agent

Tried the F11 / Search Bar trick, no luck.

Many restarts 

Finally got Quick Connect up and running by turning off VPN.  Most troubling is that no one at MS suggested this

@George Hepworth 

 

Here it is. Upper left side of screen shows Nav Bar unusably narrow. Double headed arrow does not appear.

 

Ran a test using an Access dB from another PC. In this case the Nav bar could be adjusted. This problem  apparently only shows up on dB's created on this Access app on this PC. Both PCs are win 11 and had20220902_175758.jpg MS 365 loaded same time.

@dnatch6969 

Have a look at my article: https://www.isladogs.co.uk/fix-shrunken-nav-pane/index.html

It sounds like you've tried at least one suggestion on that page but not this one:

 

Public Function MaximizeNavigationPane()

   DoCmd.NavigateTo "acNavigationCategoryObjectType"
   DoCmd.Maximize

End Function

 

You may also find this utility helpful: Navigation Pane Helper Add-In (isladogs.co.uk)

isladogs_0-1662191886547.png

Hope that helps

@isladogs 

Thanks for the guidance.  Unfortunately, I ran the code, but it had no effect on size of pane.  Ran the code with DoCmd.minimize and that did shrink the pane. Ran again with Maximize and got same result as shown in my screenshot.  It appears for some reason, Access thinks what I have IS maximized! 

 

Deleted - duplicate post

OK. In that case, have you tried just dragging the nav pane to the width you require by grabbing the right hand edge with the mouse and moving it to the right with the left mouse button held down

 

Before

Capture1.PNG

 

 

 

 

Capture2.PNG

@isladogs Sadly this too has been tried many times with no success. I don't have this problem on my new tower PC, only my laptop, both Win 11.
Even Microsoft gave up! An email simply states they are sorry they cannot help me with my issue. Not impressed with MS Tech support....

To be fair, they're not faced with rather unusual problems like this often. As you can, no doubt tell from the discussion here, not even experts like Colin are able to really pin down an answer that easily.

This is also WIndows 11 we're talking about. Not enough history to have exposed all the hidden problems. As you state, it affects one of your computers, but not the other. It's probably down to some problem on that specific computer, with its specific configuration. Maybe even a monitor problem. Unless someone can replicate the problem, it can be quite challenging to even know where to begin.

I'm not excusing MS here, just trying to point out the situation we're in as objectively as possible.

As a matter of fact, one thing you could try is to upload the accdb in question. Perhaps someone can then dig into it in some depth.

Uploading the database was also going to be my next suggestion. I've never yet seen a database where this issue couldn't be fixed

BTW if you do any further screenshots, please uset he Windows Snipping Tool or the PtrScn key to capture the screen. Crop the image as necessary. This will give a much clearer image than what you re dong now (taking a photo with your phone). Thanks in advance

@isladogs 

OK, Created an accdb on my troublesome laptop with only a phony table. However, I got this helpful  message from MS who helpfully would not let me post my accdb.  What are those guys smoking over there....

There is a problem with both your images. The message seems to indicate you've created JPEG images of your screen but saved them with an ACCDB suffix which isn't going to work
Please zip & attach the test database itself- not images of it

@isladogs 

Compressed file containing the test accdb and the two jpeg images which had been posted previously.  They all had similar names which may have been confusing.  

Thanks.
I opened the ACCDB file and the nav pane is the normal width without me doing anything.
I can send the test file back to you but I'm not sure that will help.

Did you try my Nav Pane Helper add-in? See link in my earlier post

@isladogs 

Got back home and the db works fine on my tower PC.  Something is wrong with my laptop configuration.  Spent enough time.  Now on back burner.

 

Thank you very much for all your efforts and I want to thank everyone else who contributed.  Except for MS Tech Support /;-(