Mail Merge Data Source Not Found, but Can't Add New Source or Purge Old One

[super-professional]

I’m trying to do a simple mail merge from a CSV file. I’ve done this successfully in the past (though I recall it was also a huge headache), but now something must have gone really wrong because I’m completely unable to proceed.

From the Writer Document, I go to Tools > Mail Merge Wizard… and select the CSV source. Everything seems fine, and I test the connection, no problem. But then when I go to File > Print… I get the “Data Source Not Found” error, but the file name is for an old data source I must have used previously, but since deleted. I can only cancel out and can’t continue to print the merged documents.

That file is not even listed anymore in the Registered Databases dialog. Nor is it listed in Tools > Options > LibreOffice Base > Databases. I have even tried to apt uninstall and purge LibreOffice entirely, and delete the .config directory for LibreOffice. Somehow, though, there is still the ghost in the machine from that older source, and the error is preventing me from moving forward when I reinstall and try again.

Using Version: 6.4.7.2
On Ubuntu 20.04.8

[RobertG]

I would create a new entry if “gift-entry-12-31-20220” couldn’t be found in Taools → options → LibreOffice Base → Databases.

You are using a very old version of LibreOffice. Might be the way is a little bit different.
Open LO, start File → New → Database
Choose “Connect to an existing database” → “Text” and then “Next”
Have a look for the *.csv-file and then “Next”.
Step 3: Register and open the database. Set the file name for the database to “gift-entry-12-31-20220”. This will be the name of the database, which is registered and has nothing to do with the name of the *.csv-file (but could be the same …).

[Hrbrgr]

Try:

Registering an Address Book

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Mail Merge in Writer

English documentation

[super-professional]

Doesn’t work, says there is already a database named that, and forces me to change the name to something else. Then I’m back with the same problem.

[super-professional]

It seems that this may be saved in the file itself somewhere, mapped to the individual field tokens in the text. When I double clicked on the token, there was a dialog to choose the data source there. Super confusing, because I thought that’s what the wizard would do. I had to individually remap every field token in the text and then I was able to print the mail merge.