Hi, i've resolved this issue but thought i'd post the info for reference :
this applies to sites using CE (compact edition) database
i have clients site that's running v2.5 using a CE database - recently it threw a server error on startup - the site didnt run at all ( i couldnt see this error, i had to ask the hosting company to tell me what it was )
the error message was :
The database file is larger than the configured maximum database size. This setting takes effect on the first concurrent database connection only. [ Required Max Database Size (in MB; 0 if unknown) = 257 ]
solution :
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the default size for the CE database is 257mb so we need to increase that - to do that :
modify settings.txt (located in in the App_Data folder )
from :
DataProvider: sqlce
DataConnectionString: Data Source=|DataDirectory|\Nop.Db.sdf;Persist Security Info=False
to :
DataProvider: sqlce
DataConnectionString: Data Source=|DataDirectory|\Nop.Db.sdf;Persist Security Info=False; Max Database Size=1024
*note the semi-colon after 'False'
The actual Max Database Size must be 4000 or less
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in my own particular case, the cause of the swollen database was years of stored emails and error logs - after changing the max size, i was able to run the site and carry out some housekeeping - once all the redundant records had been deleted, the database was less than 6mb