Techtalks: Traveltech

Windows Server 2008 Tableau Desktop 7.0 Local MySQL database using Xampp

When attempting to connect to a localhost MySQL database server using the native MySQL data connection in Tableau Desktop, I'm getting the following error:

"The connection to the data source might have been lost. Communication with the Tableau Protocol Server process was lost.

Unable to connect to the server "localhost". Check that the server is running and that you have access privileges to the requested database. Unable to connect to the server. Check that the server is running and that you have access privileges to the requested database."

When using "Other Databases (ODBC)" in Tableau, I am able to connect and return data. However, I would prefer to use the MySQL connection to avoid the limitations of the Other Databases connection.

I created a specific username in phpmyadmin as well as tried using the root username and password and the same error was returned. I created a user DSN in odbcad32.exe and attempted using multiple versions of the MySQL ODBC driver (3.5, 5.2.7, 5.3.4).

Does anyone have any ideas of what might be causing the error? Really appreciate any help.