LibreOffice 7.1.1.2 - No SDBC driver was found

fgotsis · May 4, 2021, 12:57am

The connection to the external data source could not be established. No SDBC driver was found for the URL ‘sdbc:embedded:firebird’. /home/abuild/rpmbuild/BUILD/libreoffice-7.1.1.2/connectivity/source/commontools/dbexception.cxx:399

I get the following error message using the latest version on a Linux machine running OpenSuse Leap 15.2 (wirh all updates installed). The database does start, but opening a form which accessed data created the above error message.

But the problem just does not exist at all if I use LibreOffice 7.0.5.2 (using the OpenSuse OpenJDK 1.11).
The database was an embedded database (in a file) created with hsqldb and was converted to firebird in 2019 nad kept working in LibreOffice until version 7.1.1. With older versions of libreoffice the database runs without a glitch.

The SDBC driver seems to exist.

Strange. For now I do have a workaround. But I do miss a an Option dialog that shows the available SDBC drivers and some explanation where to get drivers. In any case firebird is the mainly supported database, so libreoffice should implement a way to recover this error or give more specific information what might lead to such an error.

Kind Regards
Gotsis from Munich, Germany

anon73440385 · May 4, 2021, 9:36am

The SDBC driver seems to exist.

seems? … package libobasis7.1-firebird-7.1.1.2-2.x86_64.rpm is installed? (Though I would not recommend to use version 7.1.1 any longer).

PS: Using tag `libreoffice-7.1.2` is confusing. You seem to talk about version 7.1.1.

fgotsis · May 5, 2021, 11:40pm

Version of libreoffice copied from the about box

Version: 7.1.1.2 / LibreOffice Community
Build ID: 10(Build:2)
CPU threads: 24; OS: Linux 5.3; UI render: default; VCL: kf5
Locale: de-DE (en_US.UTF-8); UI: en-US
Calc: threaded

The package you mention does not exist in OpenSuse Leap 15.2
The package that is supplied is:

libreoffice-base-drivers-firebird - Firebird Database Driver for LibreOffice

/usr/lib64/libreoffice/program/libfirebird_sdbclo.so

anon73440385 · May 5, 2021, 11:49pm

The package you mention does not exist in OpenSuse Leap 15.2

Since you did not mention which packages you are using (distribution specific packages or those from TDF / libreoffice.org) I referred to TDF packages which is: libobasis7.1-firebird-7.1.1.2-2.x86_64.rpm (I’m using openSUSE 15.2 myself, but I don’t use distribution specific packages but those from TDF). And as far as I can see in YaST: Package libreoffice-base-drivers-firebird is still 6.4.5.2 while the rest of LibreOffice has been updated to 7.1.1.2-2 - and now you cannot create new firebird databases (and not open existing firebird databases. From my perspective: This is an issue of openSUSE packaging and needs to be addressed to maintainers of openSUSE packages of LibreOffice.

PS: No problem with:

Version: 7.1.3.2 / LibreOffice Community
Build ID: 47f78053abe362b9384784d31a6e56f8511eb1c1
CPU threads: 8; OS: Linux 5.3; UI render: default; VCL: kf5
Locale: en-US (en_US.UTF-8); UI: en-US, Calc: threaded

fgotsis · September 28, 2021, 2:08am

Just a short comment: The problem still exists in OpenSuse Leap 15.3.

Wanderer · September 28, 2021, 6:55am

My guess is: The Problem will stay, as it seems no problem of LibreOffice but of Suse-Leap - you know of course

To my understanding the maintainer for Leap removed the necessity of a firebase-driver from the dependencies of LibreOffice, as several distributions simply removed Base ( maybe to avoid Java ).
Therefore this driver won’t get updates until firebase will be default database again or sombody installs the necessary rpm.

As Linux maintainers are free the only “solution” would be using packages directly from TDF, wich should not have this problems. (You may find similiar topics on incomplete install under Ubuntu… )

fgotsis · September 30, 2021, 6:39am

Using OpenSuse Leap 15.3:
Using the original RPMS from the libreoffice.org (The Document Foundation) remedies the problem (for all releases I installed).
Comment to Wanderer:
I guess you are right - to solve the problem OpenSuse and more specifically Suse as the company behind OpenSuse must move. Starting with OpenSuse Leap 15.3 the packages of the open distribution are identical with those from the Suse Server release (their commercial product).
The Installation of Firebird is pretty inconsistent:
Package firebird in the distribuition have version 3.0.7, while most support files (including server packages for firebird) show version 3.0.4 which fails if you try to install them via yast or zypper (the package manager of OpenSuse).
I will highlight the problem to Suse. Maybe they try to fix it.