Connect Excel to PostgreSQL via ODBC

Question

I am trying to connect to a PostgreSQL database table from Excel via the PostgreSQL ODBC 32-bit driver.

In Excel, I go to Data>Get Data> From Other Sources> From ODBC. I navigate to the ODBC data source I set up, enter the credentials, and it clearly connects as the available tables appear. The preview fails and the query fails when I hit "Load" giving the error:

DataSource.Error: ODBC: ERROR [HY000] Error while executing the query
Details:
    DataSourceKind=Odbc
    DataSourcePath=dsn=PostgreSQL
    OdbcErrors=Table

When I test the connection in ODBC admin it is successful. I have tried both the ANSI and Unicode drivers. TIBCO Spotfire connects to the ODBC datasource and pulls the data in just fine.

Any help you can provide would be greatly appreciated.

Answer 1

This appears to be a bug with the latest psqlODBC driver, which is psqlodbc_09_06_0500 at the time I'm writing this. I have access to my PostgreSQL server logs. Here's the error message and the offending query:

ERROR:  syntax error at or near "ta" at character 553
STATEMENT:  select ta.attname, ia.attnum, ic.relname, n.nspname, tc.relname from pg_catalog.pg_attribute ta, pg_catalog.pg_attribute ia, pg_catalog.pg_class tc, pg_catalog.pg_index i, pg_catalog.pg_namespace n, pg_catalog.pg_class ic where tc.relname = 'rates' AND n.nspname = 'public' AND tc.oid = i.indrelid AND n.oid = tc.relnamespace AND i.indisprimary = 't' AND ia.attrelid = i.indexrelid AND ta.attrelid = i.indrelid AND ta.attnum = i.indkey[ia.attnum-1] AND (NOT ta.attisdropped) AND (NOT ia.attisdropped) AND ic.oid = i.indexrelid order by ia.attnumselect ta.attname, ia.attnum, ic.relname, n.nspname, NULL from pg_catalog.pg_attribute ta, pg_catalog.pg_attribute ia, pg_catalog.pg_class ic, pg_catalog.pg_index i, pg_catalog.pg_namespace n where ic.relname = 'rates_pkey' AND n.nspname = 'public' ANDic.oid = i.indexrelid AND n.oid = ic.relnamespace AND ia.attrelid = i.indexrelid AND ta.attrelid = i.indrelid AND ta.attnum = i.indkey[ia.attnum-1] AND (NOT ta.attisdropped) AND (NOT ia.attisdropped) order by ia.attnum

Here's the context around character 553: order by ia.attnumselect ta.attname, ia.attnum. Note that it's missing a comma between two field names.

I was able to get it working with psqlodbc_09_06_0200, which is about a year old. Since it sounds like you use 32-bit Office, you can download psqlodbc_09_06_0200-x86.zip from https://www.postgresql.org/ftp/odbc/versions/msi/. (Use x64 if you have 64-bit Office installed.)

You might be able to experiment with driver versions between psqlodbc_09_06_0200-x86.zip and psqlodbc_09_06_0500-x86.zip as the bug was presumably introduced somewhere between those two versions.