Question:
I am trying to view the table information by using the Data Form Wizard in Visual InterDev. I have successfully previewed the fileList.asp form that is created by the Wizard on Windows 95 (a personal Web server). But when I try to preview it on Windows NT Workstation (a server on a different machine) it gives the following error:
" Microsoft OLE DB Provider for ODBC Drivers error '80004005' [Microsoft][ODBC Driver Manager] Data source name not found and no default driver specified // .asp, line xx"
Per a Technet article I have changed the NTFS permissions on the Global.asa file to give the Anonymous Logon account, but that didn’t solve the problem. Can you help me?
Answer:
The infamous ‘8004005’ error is an all encompassing database access error number. The cause of that error can be a wide range of possibilities.
You didn’t give many details about the database that you are accessing but the error is most likely due to the fact that ASP can’t find the database at run time. Even if you can access the database using Visual InterDev Data Tools at design time, the Web server might not know where to find the database at run time. This is due to the fact that at design time, the client machine accesses the database and at run time, the server machine accesses the database.
Since you mentioned that you moved the Web server from Windows 95 Personal Web Server to a Windows NT Workstation Server, it is even more likely that this is the source of your problem. If you were using a desktop database, such as Microsoft Access located on your Windows 95 machine, then your database and Web server were on the same machine. The Web server had no trouble locating the database. Now that you have moved to a Web server on a different machine, that Web server may need to be told where to find the database.
Ensure that your connection string session variable (Visual InterDev 1.0) or application variable (Visual InterDev 6.0) in global.asa is pointing to the correct database location. You can change this by changing the connection string properties of your data connection at design time. You can also verify that the correct data connection is being opened at run time by using
Response.Write Session("Connection1_ConnectionString")
in Visual InterDev 1.0, or
Response.Write Application("Connection1_ConnectionString")
in Visual InterDev 6.0, immediately before the Open method is called to open the connection to the database. This will write to the Web page the actual connection string that is used at run time so you can verify that it is accurate.
