are you stuck using DAO?

DAO isn't optimized for client/server databases, you are much better off using ADO -- the provider apparently doesn't support the recordcount property, as dbOpenDynaset is equivalent to a Keyset cursor, which would normally be able to give you a recordcount.....

Can you convert to ADO at this point?

If not, you might have to do a loop to find out the recordcount
ex:
do until rs.eof
counter = counter + 1
rs.movenext
loop

good luck!