There have been several reports about problems with Access version 2609 over the last 10 days. Karl Donaubauer, for example, mentioned the recent Report Preview Error 2004 issue and noted that it had been reported through the MVP channels and that Microsoft was working on a fix.

So, it does appear that 2609 has introduced some regressions, and Microsoft is already aware of at least some of them. I couldn't find a similar report specifically about ACCDE creation, but given the timing and the fact that the same issue is occurring with multiple databases, I think this should be reported to Microsoft as well.

I just upgraded to Version 2609 (Build 20430.20118 Click-to-Run).

I created a .ACCDE without any issues.

Kevin I can create some .accde, from a .accdb that doesn't reference a library. Those that use the library won't create a .accde. I'm about to create a new library by import, and see if that helps.

I just tested another database with a reference to the Outlook library.
This is a test database and one of the procedures uses early binding.
No issues with that database either.

I've rebuilt the FE and the Lib. They run fine, just won't create an .accde for a FE that references the Lib.
I'm going to try rolling back Access and see what happens.

Does the database have a reference to another accdb database or Access add-in (.accda)? If so, check the entire reference chain. Access requires referenced Access databases or add-ins to be converted to ACCDE/ACCDA versions first, starting with the lowest-level reference, and then the references must be updated before converting the next database in the chain.

The fact that Kevin can create an ACCDE successfully on the same 2609 build suggests that this may not be a general ACCDE problem in 2609. However, I wonder whether there could be an issue with the update itself on your machine. In other words, Access may appear to be working normally, while a component or part of the updated installation may not have been installed or registered correctly. That could potentially cause only certain functions, such as the ACCDE compilation process, to fail while the rest of Access continues to work normally.

So I'd consider rolling back to the previous build and then updating again, or otherwise repairing/reinstalling Office, to see whether the problem persists.

Have you tried a simple reboot?

Well, I got it fixed. @Kevin Had tried several reboots with the problem still happening.
Before I read Alkan's msg just now...
I rolled back, and then did and redid the steps. Along the way I found that undoing the checkbox for the lib.accdb reference and then adding in one for the lib.accde the references didn't take until I completely shut down Access and brought the FE back in anew, compiled again (forced it w code change in a comment), and then shut Access down again. The next Open of the FE let me create the .accde.

So, the other user that reported this a few days ago probably didn't have corrupted files per say. I didn't but got a very similar VBA oriented error message when trying to create the .accde.  The problem seems to revolve around changing library references and until Access is shut down and restarted, some old reference crap can be lying about. I just got in a vicious cycle of repeating VBE problems. There may be more to it seeing as the reboots didn't solve the problem. I guess I finally did a Fonzie slam on the jukebox hard enough to clear the problem.

Glad you got it sorted out. That certainly sounds like Access was hanging onto stale reference information in the current session, and the error message sent you chasing VBA problems that weren't really there.

And yes, sometimes the technical term really is "Fonzie slam," but you gotta follow it up with "ayyyy!"