Cannot start your application. The workgroup information file is missing or opened exclusively by another user – Exception when connecting to AccessDb

Recently I tried to connect to a Microsoft Access Database through an ASP.NET web application. But the Access database which I tried to connect was password protected. Therefore I used below connection string to connect to it.

private const string connString = @"Provider=Microsoft.ACE.OLEDB.12.0;Data Source=\\sg1dp0041fas\RAP\Appendix\DB\Resource Allocation1.4.accdb;Password=databasePassword";

But then the application threw an exception as below,

Cannot start your application. The workgroup information file is missing or opened exclusively by another user.

This is the change that you should do to overcome above exception. Instead of Password = databasePassword use Jet OLEDB:Database Password=databasePassword in your connection string.

Then the complete connection string is like below,

private const string connString = @"Provider=Microsoft.ACE.OLEDB.12.0;Data Source=\\sg1dp0041fas\RAP\Appendix\DB\Resource Allocation1.4.accdb; Jet OLEDB:Database Password=cbrapcb";