Every once in a while we build queries that take Access a very long time to run. Sometimes these queries take so long that you attempt to multi-task, then when you return Access says it is not responding...

Now for most users this is a hearbreaker, however I understand that even though it says that, it will respond once that query finishes.

So my question is.. Do we have any sure way of knowing when that display is occurring because the database is too busy or when it is really just hosed?

Yes this may be a bad reflection of how I write my queries...