MySQL Connector/ODBC Not Working with Leopard

It is sometimes just as important to know about something that does not work as it is to know about things that do work. Such is the case with MySQL Connector/ODBC (Open Database Connectivity).

I work with Linux, Mac OS X, and Microsoft Windows (desktop and servers) all the time. One interoperability feature that has been very valuable is the ability to have Microsoft Excel for Windows to access data directly from a MySQL database (usually running on a Linux server in my case). The SQL View feature that became available with MySQL 5 is especially handy since it lets you perform SQL table joins ahead of time and provide the View as a single table for Excel users to work with in a single spreadsheet. It seemed worthwhile to learn if this would also work with the recently released Microsoft Excel 2008 for Mac. I downloaded the package version of the Open Source MySQL Connector/ODBC for Mac OS X 5.1.2 Beta. The older 3.5 version is no longer listed on the MySQL downloads sidebar, so I assumed this was a tacit recommendation to use the 5.1.2 beta version.

The package installation did present any problems. The configuration to connect to MySQL running on a Linux server (actually a VMware Fusion virtual machine on the same Mac with its own IP address) also seemed to go well. The test from the ODBC Administrator indicated that it successfully connected to the MySQL database over TCP port 3306 as expected.

However, accepting this configuration in ODBC Administrator resulted in a crash complaining about libmyodbc35.so. If the 35 in that filename means that it is tied to the older MySQL Connector/ODBC 3.5, it may be a simple compile time link error.

I decided to try the connector with Excel 2008 despite the crash since the initial ODBC Administrator test connection was successful. Unfortunately, Excel did not see it at all. A bit more web searching revealed MySQL Bug #32057 initially reported for MySQL Connector/ODBC 3.51.21 and extended to version 5.1. The bug was originally reported on November 2, 2007. So, it has been around for a while. But, I haven't seen it mentioned in the various Mac-focused news and discussion sites I read. So, I thought it would be a good idea to mention it here to give the issue a bit more visibility.