We are facing a strange behavior for the Database Connector (deprecated) and the current DB Connector for KNIME version 4.7.4 and 5.1.2. . All over sudden the Oracle driver stopped working for one of my collegues in the old Database Connector (deprecated). Although there are two Oracle drivers installed (12.1 and 23.2) they simply don’t appear anymore in the Database Connector (deprecated) driver selection dropdown (for both KNIME versions) - the dialect selection does not contain any Oracle related selection. For the current Database Connector both drivers appear and work (dialect selection + driver available). Reinstalling one or both Oracle drivers via the KNIME preferences doesn’t help - the appear in the new Connector nodes but not in the old, deprecated ones. We tried to fix the issue by reinstalling an old version of KNIME (4.7.4) but the issue still persists: No more Oracle database and dialect selection although the driver(s) is installed (they appeared for the old KNIME version without reinstallation).
And even stranger is the fact that the Database Connector (deprecated) and the current Database Connector work with both drivers on other machines on KNIME Analytics Platform 5.1.2.
Unfortunately we have no clue how to fix the issue (that is only present for one of my collegues). Can anybody make sense of this behavior and is there a way to fix it?
Hello @aherzberg ,
Thank you for providing this information. I discussed this with my colleague @armingrudd, and he suggested that we check the following things:
Can you check under File → Preferences → Databases if and which DB driver is loaded?
If it is loaded, can you drag a DB Connector node(new one) and check if you can see the exact driver listed in the Driver Name?
I am Andys collegue whose knime shows this weird behaviour. In the new DB Connector node, I can see exactly the (2) oracle-drivers in the driver name which are loaded in the preferences. This is not the problem.
The problem is the old DB connector node. Both installed and loaded oracle drivers (in the preferences) are not listet, oracle-drivers are not available there, but they were when I worked with the old 4.7.4 version before installing the new 5.1.2. Now the oracle drivers doesn’t even appear when I use the old 4.7.4 version, although I installed them and loaded them again in the preferences.
This causes me problems because I have to change all DB nodes (connector, query reader, writer) in my Workflows, and if I have to use workflow from collegues (in holiday substitution) I have to change their workflows too. And that shouldn’t happen, the old workflows should be compatible to the new knime. And it doesn’t even help, when I change back to the old knime 4.7.4 version.
Thanks for taking a look at that problem,
Stephanie
I’m sorry to hear that you encounter this problem. The reason for this behavior is that the new DB Connector node and the Database Connector (Deprecated) node use different settings to register a JDBC driver. When we deprecated the old database nodes we also removed the preference page for this framework to prevent confusion when working with the new framework. However you can still register JDBC drivers for the deprecated framework manually by following the instruction from this post.
I know it is time consuming to update existing database workflow and the workflow migration tool can help only so much but is there anything else e.g. a missing feature that prevents you from updating to the new DB framework?
Hi Tobias,
thank you for the explanation, it looks like the problem is not as weird as we thought, its kind of regular. I have taken a look into the instruction to register the drivers for the deprecated framework. I am not sure whether i understand everything (i am just a stupid user so I will try together with my colleague Andy next week.
I will give a feedback whether ist works or not.
Thanks
Stephanie
Hi @tobias.koetter ,
we justed followed all of our instructions today. It worked half/ half, I still do not have the Databases (legacy) in my preferences, but putting the additional line with the old command and path into the exported preferences and reimport them, makes that the DB connector (deprecated) works again. So everything ist fine for me.
Thanks a lot and I wish you a merry christmas
Stephanie
so I will try together with my colleague Andy next week.