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ODBC Error: [netsuite][odbc 64bit driver]error parsing connect string at offset 65
If you encounter this error, this might be the result of the complexity of your password.
The process I followed:
- Installed the Netsuite ODBC driver as described
- Entered the necessary credentials
- Tested the connection and WITH success !
In PowerBI
- Created a new pbix.
- Selected the ODBC connector with the Netsuite connection
- Entered mij credentials
- Received the above (see title) ERROR.
After two hours looking into the problem and not thinking of a credentials issue - because testing the connection worked - it was after looking at my password and seeing al the special chararters that I got a bright moment. Changed the password in something complex but with no exotic characters, retried the setup and it worked.
Hopefully this will help a few people searching for hours.
1 Reply
Divyaraj_RathodHelper II
Thanks for sharing the fix, this is a great find for others hitting the same wall. To add a bit of context on why it happens: ODBC connection strings use certain characters (semicolons, curly braces, equals signs, etc.) as field delimiters. If a password happens to contain one of these "special" characters, the driver misparses the connect string at that offset instead of treating it as part of the password value, which produces exactly the generic parsing error you saw.
A couple of extra tips for anyone else running into this:
- If you can't change the password, some ODBC drivers support wrapping the value in braces, e.g. PWD={my;pass=word}, to escape delimiter characters.
- Storing the password in Windows Credential Manager / a gateway credential (rather than embedding it directly in the connection string) avoids the parsing issue entirely, since the driver receives it out of band.
- When testing new ODBC credentials, it's worth trying a simple alphanumeric password first to confirm the driver/connector setup itself is correct before troubleshooting further.