ODBC (Word Merge and Access DB)

[Chuckz1947]

1. I have been doing mail merges for decades using MS WOrd and MS Acces.

2. Currently using Office 365 products.

3. Last successful merge was at end of August 2020

4. No attempts to do merges until mid October 2020.

5. I receive what appears to be an ODBC setup manager window.

6. I do not recall ever having to work with this item. (see attached image)

7. At the bottom of the manager there is a test button.  Clicking this results in an error message. (see attached image)

8. I have worked with MS support in both Windows and Office without success.  The following has been tried: a) Office repair; b) uninstall and reinstall of Office; c) installation of Access redistributable

[#2]

@Chuckz1947 The second image, with the connection dialog, appears to indicate that one or more files have been relocated and the existing connection is not pointing to the new location(s).

[#3]

@George Hepworth 

Thank you for your reply.

That’s what it would seem to me too, but the connection string as it reads “DSN=MS Access Database;DBQ=D:\DOCUMENTS - COPY\MASTERFRONT\Master_fe.mdb;DefaultDir=D:\DOCUMENTS - COPY\MASTERFRONT;DriverId=25;FIL=MS Access;MaxBufferSize=2048;PageTimeout=5;”, appears OK to me for the parts that I understand.  What I mean is:

I have a split database and the naming and the path is correct (D:\DOCUMENTS - COPY\MASTERFRONT\Master_fe.mdb).  This is where all of my queries, forms and reports are located. “Master_fe.mdb” is the name of my front end.

The odc files are at D:/my data sources.

For the initial catalogue to use, the path is correct as I see it (D:\DOCUMENTS - COPY\MASTERFRONT\Master_fe.mdb),

When I use the “test”, I do not understand why it says “data source name not found” and no default driver specified.

I was wondering whether I should incorporate the following somewhere: D:/my data sources, and if so where, but when I get the opportunity from within the Word merge, to “find” the data source, it does in fact point to the subdirectory “my data sources”.

What about installing a fresh ODBC driver?

[#4]

@Chuckz1947 

I have done some experimentation:

1. I get the error messages (as previously  mentioned) when I attempt to run a merge from any Word document that is associated with an ODC file previously created (and was previously working)

2.  If I instead select a new data source from the Word merge document, and I navigate to the appropriate query, I do not get those error messages, but in trying to run the merge I get this error message:

Upon checking, there appears to be no evidence of an ODC file having been created.

The most important issue of course is in finding the "fix".  More generally, are ODC issues considered Access issues, Word issues or Windows issues?  

I

[#5]

@Chuckz1947 

I was fortunate to find a consultant who understood the issue and resolved it quickly. 

[#6]

Care to share to benefit others who may be facing the same issue.