This can be caused by trying to set a property that needs to be set before the object is opened. For example, trying to set the MaxRecords property of an ADODB.Recordset object after opening the recordset:
<%
set rs = server.Createobject("ADODB.Recordset")
rs.open "SELECT columns FROM tablename",conn
rs.maxRecords = 5
%>
To fix, the code should be:
<%
set rs = server.Createobject("ADODB.Recordset")
rs.maxRecords = 5
rs.open "SELECT columns FROM tablename",conn
%>