MySQL Bugs: #68533: Excel 2013 crashes when connecting via mysql obdc

Bug #68533	Excel 2013 crashes when connecting via mysql obdc
Submitted:	1 Mar 2013 4:39	Modified:	14 Mar 2013 12:16
Reporter:	Brent Jones	Email Updates:
Status:	Not a Bug	Impact on me:	None
Category:	Connector / ODBC	Severity:	S3 (Non-critical)
Version:	MySQL ODBC 5.2a Driver	OS:	Windows
Assigned to:	Bogdan Degtyariov	CPU Architecture:	Any
Tags:	connector, excel 2013, ODBC, windows 8

Description:
I've struck a continual error in which I'll try and add a MySQL ODBC connection to Excel only for Excel to crash when I hit 'OK' on the wizard. I confirmed I've installed and am using the correct 32bit driver for the connection. I've been able to use 'MySQL for Excel' but this doesn't provide the query abilities I require.

How to repeat:
-Add ODBC connection to MySQL server
-Open Excel
-Select Data tab and choose From Other Sources
-Select 'Other/Advanced' and Next
-Select 'Microsoft OLE DB Provider for ODBC Drivers and hit next
-Select previously created ODBC connection, correct credentials.
Note that hitting 'Test Connection' says it worked fine and I can select a table as well
-Hit 'OK' and cue Excel Crash

Hi Brent,

What is the exact version of Connector/ODBC 5.2a you are using?
Is that 5.2.4?

Does your DSN have any special options set?
Which character set is set there? Please note that using multibyte charsets such as UTF-16/UCS-2 with the ANSI version (5.2a is for ANSI) can cause the crash.

Did you try repeating the same steps with the DSN option "Prepare statements on the client"? This option can be set from ODBC driver GUI -> Details -> Misc.
Thanks.

I've recently rebuilt my computer. All details the same except the connector which is now,

MySQL ODBC 5.2w
Version: 5.02.04.00

No special DSN settings. The character set was set to blank. The database uses latin1 so I set that to no avail. Also tried allowing prepared statements on the client.

Of note, I found that if I test connection without selecting initial catalog, the test is fine. As soon as I select a catalog, it pauses for a moment them comes back with,

"Test connection failed because of an error in initializing provider. Catastrophic Failure"

I found I can proceed if I don't select a catalog. Next, it asks which table to use and then allows me to save the ODC. However, I finish the wizard and it gets a,

"Initialisation of the data source failed.

Check the database server or contact your database administrator. Make sure the external database is available, and then try the operation again. If you see this message again, create a new data source to connect to the database."

Hi Brent,

I do not have any problems with my Excel.
Can you enable the trace in ODBC administrator and then try repeating Excel crash?
In order to determine what exactly has happened I need to check that ODBC trace.
Thanks.

Attached trace log

Attachment: SQL.LOG (text/plain), 94.42 KiB.

hi Brent,

I am still not able to repeat the crash. For me it says "Invalid Argument Value".
The ODBC trace does not have anything suspicious, all calls returned SQL_SUCCESS results.

However, I might advise on a workaround for your problem.
As you might know MS Excel 2013 has different ways to achieve the same goal.
So, instead of choosing "Other/Advanced" you might try "ODBC DSN" as shown on the screenshot (data_wizard.jpg). This way worked for me perfectly: no errors, no crashes, just inserted the data as expected.

Excel 2013 screenshot

Attachment: data_wizard.jpg (image/jpeg, text), 122.41 KiB.

Yes, your suggested method worked fine. Will use this instead.

Are there any other logs or anything else helpful I can provide for the bug?

I think this is a bug in MS Excel because the ODBC trace does not contain any errors for me, but as I mentioned before Excel showed the error connecting to the data source. So, it looks as if it failed somewhere in its internal calls rather than in the ODBC driver.