Hello,
I "strace"t the R session when trying to connect to the database. Strange, that /etc/odbc.ini first should be opened with Append-mode: open("/etc/odbc.ini", O_WRONLY|O_CREAT|O_APPEND, 0666) = -1 EACCES (Permission denied) open("/etc/odbc.ini", O_RDONLY) = 3 fstat(3, {st_mode=S_IFREG|0644, st_size=259, ...}) = 0 mmap(NULL, 4096, PROT_READ|PROT_WRITE, MAP_PRIVATE|MAP_ANONYMOUS, -1, 0) = 0x7f305ae91000 read(3, "[rtestdb]\nDescription = rtest"..., 4096) = 259 also strange: the file will be read many, many times. I did not pasted it here, but /etc/odbc.ini and /etc/passwd are read very often. I assume for each entry in /etc/passwd until the one that os looked for, /etc/odbc.ini is opened once... ...maybe I should test this hypothesis... looks strange. The next stuff also looks strange: as if there is a problem because of a missing locale-stuff? mprotect(0x7f30565eb000, 4096, PROT_READ) = 0 open("/usr/share/locale/de_DE.UTF-8/LC_MESSAGES/libc.mo", O_RDONLY) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory) open("/usr/share/locale/de_DE.utf8/LC_MESSAGES/libc.mo", O_RDONLY) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory) open("/usr/share/locale/de_DE/LC_MESSAGES/libc.mo", O_RDONLY) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory) open("/usr/share/locale/de.UTF-8/LC_MESSAGES/libc.mo", O_RDONLY) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory) open("/usr/share/locale/de.utf8/LC_MESSAGES/libc.mo", O_RDONLY) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory) open("/usr/share/locale/de/LC_MESSAGES/libc.mo", O_RDONLY) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory) open("/usr/share/locale-langpack/de_DE.UTF-8/LC_MESSAGES/libc.mo", O_RDONLY) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory) open("/usr/share/locale-langpack/de_DE.utf8/LC_MESSAGES/libc.mo", O_RDONLY) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory) open("/usr/share/locale-langpack/de_DE/LC_MESSAGES/libc.mo", O_RDONLY) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory) open("/usr/share/locale-langpack/de.UTF-8/LC_MESSAGES/libc.mo", O_RDONLY) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory) open("/usr/share/locale-langpack/de.utf8/LC_MESSAGES/libc.mo", O_RDONLY) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory) open("/usr/share/locale-langpack/de/LC_MESSAGES/libc.mo", O_RDONLY) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory) open("/usr/share/locale/de_DE.UTF-8/LC_MESSAGES/RODBC.mo", O_RDONLY) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory) open("/usr/share/locale/de_DE.utf8/LC_MESSAGES/RODBC.mo", O_RDONLY) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory) open("/usr/share/locale/de_DE/LC_MESSAGES/RODBC.mo", O_RDONLY) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory) open("/usr/share/locale/de.UTF-8/LC_MESSAGES/RODBC.mo", O_RDONLY) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory) open("/usr/share/locale/de.utf8/LC_MESSAGES/RODBC.mo", O_RDONLY) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory) open("/usr/share/locale/de/LC_MESSAGES/RODBC.mo", O_RDONLY) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory) open("/usr/share/locale-langpack/de_DE.UTF-8/LC_MESSAGES/RODBC.mo", O_RDONLY) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory) open("/usr/share/locale-langpack/de_DE.utf8/LC_MESSAGES/RODBC.mo", O_RDONLY) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory) open("/usr/share/locale-langpack/de_DE/LC_MESSAGES/RODBC.mo", O_RDONLY) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory) open("/usr/share/locale-langpack/de.UTF-8/LC_MESSAGES/RODBC.mo", O_RDONLY) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory) open("/usr/share/locale-langpack/de.utf8/LC_MESSAGES/RODBC.mo", O_RDONLY) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory) open("/usr/share/locale-langpack/de/LC_MESSAGES/RODBC.mo", O_RDONLY) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory) semop(294920, 0x7fff62e9c110, 2) = 0 semop(294920, 0x7fff62e9c130, 1) = 0 open("/usr/share/locale/de_DE.UTF-8/LC_MESSAGES/R-RODBC.mo", O_RDONLY) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory) open("/usr/share/locale/de_DE.utf8/LC_MESSAGES/R-RODBC.mo", O_RDONLY) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory) open("/usr/share/locale/de_DE/LC_MESSAGES/R-RODBC.mo", O_RDONLY) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory) open("/usr/share/locale/de.UTF-8/LC_MESSAGES/R-RODBC.mo", O_RDONLY) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory) open("/usr/share/locale/de.utf8/LC_MESSAGES/R-RODBC.mo", O_RDONLY) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory) open("/usr/share/locale/de/LC_MESSAGES/R-RODBC.mo", O_RDONLY) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory) open("/usr/share/locale-langpack/de_DE.UTF-8/LC_MESSAGES/R-RODBC.mo", O_RDONLY) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory) open("/usr/share/locale-langpack/de_DE.utf8/LC_MESSAGES/R-RODBC.mo", O_RDONLY) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory) open("/usr/share/locale-langpack/de_DE/LC_MESSAGES/R-RODBC.mo", O_RDONLY) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory) open("/usr/share/locale-langpack/de.UTF-8/LC_MESSAGES/R-RODBC.mo", O_RDONLY) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory) open("/usr/share/locale-langpack/de.utf8/LC_MESSAGES/R-RODBC.mo", O_RDONLY) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory) open("/usr/share/locale-langpack/de/LC_MESSAGES/R-RODBC.mo", O_RDONLY) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory) open("/usr/share/locale-langpack/de_DE.UTF-8/LC_MESSAGES/R.mo", O_RDONLY) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory) open("/usr/share/locale-langpack/de_DE/LC_MESSAGES/R.mo", O_RDONLY) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory) open("/usr/share/locale-langpack/de.UTF-8/LC_MESSAGES/R.mo", O_RDONLY) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory) open("/usr/share/locale-langpack/de/LC_MESSAGES/R.mo", O_RDONLY) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory) write(2, "Warning messages:\n"..., 18Warning messages: ) = 18 write(2, "1: In odbcDriverConnect(st, ...) "..., 1571: In odbcDriverConnect(st, ...) : [RODBC] ERROR: state IM004, code 0, message [unixODBC][Driver Manager]Driver's SQLAllocHandle on SQL_HANDLE_HENV failed ) = 157 write(2, "2: In odbcDriverConnect(st, ...) "..., 582: In odbcDriverConnect(st, ...) : ODBC connection failed ) = 58 rt_sigprocmask(SIG_BLOCK, [INT], [], 8) = 0 So this file is missing (have Ubuntu-Linux here), and directly after trying to acces the file the error is returned. I would assume this is a problem for the developers (or at least the package maintainers). Ciao, Oliver ______________________________________________ R-help@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.