I have a [Before Delete] data macro that works fine when I delete one row manually. But, as soon as I try to delete rows with a query – it fails.

Specifically, I get “Run-time error ‘2486’” with “You can’t carry out this action at the present time.” If I click “End”, I then see the scary “Unknown Access database engine error” message. (In my experience, this usually amounts to me doing something dumb. 😉

Why would Access care whether the delete is occurring with a mouse-click or a query. I thought the whole point of these things was that they were agnostic of ‘how’, and would always record deletes regardless of context.

The macro is making use of a custom function that records some details about the deletion in an audit table (runs SQL). (…big surprise, right? ha…) Anyway – it would seem that being unable to delete rows via a query pretty much nullifies the use of delete-related data macro altogether. Hmmmm…