LibreOffice: 'com.mysql.jdbc.driver' cannot be loaded

Question

I am trying to connect LibreOffice Base with an MySQL database, in phpMyAdmin, with a JDBC-connection.

The first step is to select which database you want to select:

Answer 1

After following the above instructions and successfully connecting to the desired MySQL database, I discovered that tables containing 0000-00-00 00:00:00 in a DateTime field generated the error 'Value 0000-00-00 00:00:00' can not be loaded as java.sql.Timestamp. Finding references to "zeroDateTimeBehavior=convertToNull" as the solution was easy; the tricky part was where to enter this in LibreOffice. The quick answer: Enter it as part of the Database name field - so 'mydatabase' would become 'mydatabase?zeroDateTimeBehavior=convertToNull'. Running under Linux Mint / Ubuntu with a localhost server, this worked wonders. Happy data crunching!

Answer 2

You need to download and "register" the JDBC connector first. To do so:

1. Go to http://dev.mysql.com/downloads/connector/j/ and download the ZIP archive with the JDBC connector ("Platform-Independent"); you may alternatively download the MSI installer; in this case, the jar file can be found in Program Files (x86)/MySQL/MySQL Connector J/ (assuming a Win 7 64bit system)

2. Unzip the archive on your local PC (remember the path to its contents), or alternatively install the MSI file;

3. In the extracted folder structure, there's a file "mysql-connector-java-5.0.8-bin.jar" (name depends on the exact version you've downloaded)

4. Run LibreOffice (not Base, just LO);

5. Open Menu Tools -> Options -> LibreOffice -> Advanced -> Class Path;

   

6. Click Add Archive;

   

7. Select the jar file from step 1-3 and hit OK. Now, the Class Pathdialog should look as follows:

   

That's it. Now, LO knows where to look for the MySQL JDBC Driver.

Answer 3

BTW, for Mariadb everything else is the same, but the jdbc driver class changes to this:

org.mariadb.jdbc.Driver

Answer 4

If you're using Red Hat like linux distros like Fedora, you can install it from the repositories with yum or dnf and then:

In Base goto Tools/Options/Java, click Classpath and select /usr/share/java/mysql-connector-java.jar in the file browser.

https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/QA:Testcase_MySQL_or_MariaDB_in_libreoffice-base