Is Access 2013 supported? I tried to connect a database, but I get the following error when I try to run the link:
“Error in Lot log: No connection string specified”
I can get it to work with a complicated work-around - I need to convert the access database to an .mdb file and then use the ODBC database type and setup the connection manually. (Can you say pain in the hind-quarters?)
Any pointers or help appreciated.
Thanks,
Nick
Not yet, but thanks for the suggestion and work-around. We added a ticket/request to update ODL support.
Also look for ODBC support in the upcoming 9.4 PAC Display PRO logging enhancements.
Hey Nick,
Did you get this error when you tried to connect to the Access database:
I ask because I’ve just learned:
We actually do support Access 2013 already, since it uses the same connection format as 2010.
And also, that you be:
…missing the newest Access ODBC driver (before 2007 they only supported .mdb file types).
One last thing about that driver you may be missing (but may not need if you’d just known to pick the 2007 - 2010" option?), apparently it usually gets installed alongside Microsoft Office, but you can get it by installing the x86 version of the Microsoft Access runtime here.
Or so I’m told. Thoughts? More details for us?
Thanks,
Mary
FYI - I’ve been told by the developer that ODL R9.5a now supports Access 2013.
I have moved on to SQL. Which was a chore in itself.
On that note,
A warning to anyone migrating from 9.4- to 9.5+:
OptoDataLink reads database data in a completely different way!
9.4 read 1 row each cycle, now 9.5 reads an entire column each cycle. (Is there a limit to the # of rows?)
This requires a major rebuild of the datalink interaction in a strategy. In the long haul it should read faster, but be aware that this is a big change and it WILL break any link that is not updated to the new standard.
Also, kudos to the team on a quick fix (R9.5001) to enable blank/NULL items in string quarries.
Hi nickvnlr,
Thanks for the kudos, always appreciated. I’m not a big ODL user myself, but I’m not sure what you mean by this warning. Could you give a few more details on what you had in 9.4 that had to be changed for 9.5? Any/all config files or sample strategies you care to share can be sent to support@opto22.com. We’d like to have a better understanding of your struggles here.
Thanks,
-OptoMary
No struggles once I understood what was going on, but it is a fundamental shift in how ODL pulls data from a database. I was a little shocked when I did an update to 9.5 and my datalink stuff broke.
It should be a faster read, but it requires some recoding to make it all work again. My only concern at this point is how reliably the data between columns can be matched back up on a row by row basis. I have not had an opportunity to explore this yet, but my suspicion is that the inclusion of blanks/NULLS was required for this to work properly (besides killing this error).
It previously (9.4-) polled 1 row each cycle.
Now (9.5+) it polls a column each read cycle. And it only polls one column per datalink so an individual link is required for each column.
