Can't open lib 'ODBC Driver 13 for SQL Server'? Sym linking issue?

Question

When I try to connect to a sql server database with pyodbc (on mac):

import pyodbc

server = \'####\'
database = \'####\'
username = \'####@####\'
password =         


        

Answer 1

Running:

odbcinst -j

It yielded:

unixODBC 2.3.4
DRIVERS............: /etc/odbcinst.ini
SYSTEM DATA SOURCES: /etc/odbc.ini
FILE DATA SOURCES..: /etc/ODBCDataSources
USER DATA SOURCES..: /Users/emehex/.odbc.ini
SQLULEN Size.......: 8
SQLLEN Size........: 8
SQLSETPOSIROW Size.: 8

Instead of copying the files to the /etc/ directory (not sure why unixODBC thought they were there) I created a symbolic link to each file:

sudo ln -s /usr/local/etc/odbcinst.ini /etc/odbcinst.ini
sudo ln -s /usr/local/etc/odbc.ini /etc/odbc.ini

This solved the problem.

Answer 2

In my case, I had to change the pyodbc database driver string to
driver='{ODBC Driver 17 for SQL Server}'

actually, in my python code pyodbc was expecting ODBC Driver 13 but, as the ODBC Driver version was updated (because of ubuntu update) to current version ODBC Driver 17, the problem had occurred.

Answer 3

In my case, I fixed the problem with three steps as follow:

# Step1: install unixodbc 
brew install unixodbc

# Step2: install Microsoft ODBC Driver for SQL Server on MacOS

brew tap microsoft/mssql-release https://github.com/Microsoft/homebrew-mssql-release
brew update
brew install msodbcsql mssql-tools

# Step3：verify odbcinst configuration path is correct

odbcinst -j

sudo ln -s /usr/local/etc/odbcinst.ini /etc/odbcinst.ini
sudo ln -s /usr/local/etc/odbc.ini /etc/odbc.ini