Access macro to read emails from MS Outlook - ms-access

Question

I have a macro in Access that connects to the running instance of MS Outlook.
The macro had been working, until last week when I started receiving the error: Activex component can't create object whenever I ran the macro.
Here's a piece of the code and where it's currently failing:
Function GatherDailyStats()
Dim oOlAp As Object, oOlns As Object, oOlInb As Object
Dim oOlItm As Object
'Dim FileName As
Dim i, j As Integer
Dim strDir1 As String
Dim strDir2 As String
'~~> Get Outlook instance
Set oOlAp = GetObject(, "Outlook.Application") '--**THIS IS WHERE IT FAILS**
Set oOlns = oOlAp.GetNamespace("MAPI")
Set oOlInb = oOlns.GetDefaultFolder(olFolderInbox).Folders.Item("Daily Stats")
'~~> Check if there are any actual unread emails
If oOlInb.Items.Restrict("[UnRead] = True").Count = 0 Then
MsgBox "NO Unread Email In Daily Stats folder"
Exit Function
End If
Nothing has changed in the code since I created it and tested it thoroughly.
Update: I just tested the same application on a different computer and it worked perfectly there.

Answer 1

Here is a KB article about the ROT and how Office applications by design don't register until their start up sequence has finished. You may be seeing an issue that was always there, just never ran into it before for whatever reason.
Lifted from this discussion you may want to try adding a fall back to make sure that the application is running:
On Error Resume Next
Set objOutlook = GetObject(, "Outlook.Application")
If Err.Number = 429 Then
Set objOutlook = CreateObject("Outlook.Application")
End If
From that same discussion it is important to note that Outlook 2010 apparently has some kind of issue with registering in the ROT when not started in Administrator mode.
Apparently there is a work around that someone has posted which includes:
...if you assign the Everyone group full rights to the Office install
directory it will then work.
Not sure that is the greatest idea but it is a known issue with Office 2010.
EDIT: here is one last resource.

Answer 2

GetObject will throw an error, if the application isn't running. You need to check for this:
On Error Resume Next
Set oOlAp = GetObject(, "Outlook.Application")
If Err.Number <> 0 Then Set oOlAp = New Outlook.Application
Alternatively, you could just create a new instance of your object:
Set oOlAp = CreateObject("Outlook.Application")
Using CreateObject to create a new instance will, of course, increase resource load in cases when an object of same type was already initialized. Saying it differently, to increase performance and lower use of system resources, better use the first suggested solution.

Answer 3

Firstly, always use CreateObject when creating an instance of the Outlook.Application object - Outlook is a singleton, so only one instance will ever be running for the logged in user.
Secondly, what are the versions of Outlook and Access? Are they all the same version>? If not, are they both 32 or 64 bit?