Tableau error connecting to local MySQL db

Question

Windows Server 2008 Tableau Desktop 7.0 Local MySQL database using Xampp

When attempting to connect to a localhost MySQL database server using the native MySQL data connection in Tableau Desktop, I'm getting the following error:

"The connection to the data source might have been lost. Communication with the Tableau Protocol Server process was lost.

Unable to connect to the server "localhost". Check that the server is running and that you have access privileges to the requested database. Unable to connect to the server. Check that the server is running and that you have access privileges to the requested database."

When using "Other Databases (ODBC)" in Tableau, I am able to connect and return data. However, I would prefer to use the MySQL connection to avoid the limitations of the Other Databases connection.

I created a specific username in phpmyadmin as well as tried using the root username and password and the same error was returned. I created a user DSN in odbcad32.exe and attempted using multiple versions of the MySQL ODBC driver (3.5, 5.2.7, 5.3.4).

Does anyone have any ideas of what might be causing the error? Really appreciate any help.

Answer 1

A bit late in replying but.... MySQL user connections are based on a combination of username,password AND the host you are connecting from. If you are connecting to MySQL on the same host as Tableau server, then the connecting host could be seen as '127.0.0.1', 'localhost', '::1' or even a hostname if MySQL is configured to resolve those.

The simple way to test would be to set the host field to '%' for the user you are trying to connect as. I would not recommend this for your root user entry or other accounts with significant privileges.