“Data source name not found and no default driver specified” for creating access connection

Question

This is my connection to an access database in .NET:

OdbcConnection conn = new OdbcConnection("Driver={Microsoft Access Driver (*.mdb)};Dbq=" + path + "\\Access.mdb;Uid=;Pwd=;");

And I got this problem:

base {System.Data.Common.DbException} = {"ERROR [IM002] [Microsoft][ODBC Driver Manager] Data source name not found and no default driver specified"}

I have tried couple of database connection strings from here: http://www.connectionstrings.com/access but none of them working.

Any suggestions for this?

Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

There is an easy way to get the connection string, try it as follow:

• Create a text file and change it's extension to .udl .
• Open the new file by double click it and choose to open it with any text editor, notepad for example.
• In the opened window, choose your provider and your database and click OK.
• Open this file with notepad as a text and you will find the connectoin string inside it.

See This for more details.

Answer 2

as you can see in the same site you have linked above, the default way to connect to access database is specifying the Microsoft.Jet.OLEDB.4.0 Provider:

Provider=Microsoft.Jet.OLEDB.4.0;Data Source=C:\mydatabase.mdb;User Id=admin;Password=;

does this work and if not what kind of errors do you get?

Answer 3

web.config add

add name="odbcConnectionString"
    connectionString="Driver={Microsoft Access Driver (*.mdb)};DBQ=|DataDirectory|info.mdb; "
    providerName="System.Data.OleDb"

Answer 4

First, is path a valid field?

Second, try to output the String you are using to connect with the database file, as a sanity check. Make sure the output string matches what you are expecting, and that the file specified exists.

Answer 5

Try this

http://www.connectionstrings.com/

More specifically this one

http://www.connectionstrings.com/access

I would change your code to the following:

OdbcConnectionStringBuilder sb = new OdbcConnectionStringBuilder();
sb.Driver = "Microsoft Access Driver (*.mdb)";
sb.Add("Dbq", "C:\\info.mdb");
sb.Add("Uid", "Admin");
sb.Add("Pwd", "pass!word1");
OdbcConnection con = new OdbcConnection(sb.ConnectionString);