Troubleshooting

Below are some commonly occurring issues and their solutions:

  • Ensure you can connect to the database with the host, port, database, user name, and password using the MariaDB client. See MariaDB documentation for proper security and connection information, and for the usage of the MariaDB client.
  • If you try to list the tables and nothing happens, check the FME log file. There may have been an underlying error that didn’t generate a dialog. Usually this means a parameter does not exist or permissions are not sufficient to access the requested resource.
  • When using a UNIX operating system, the environment variables MYSQL_HOST, MYSQL_TCP_PORT, USER and MYSQL_PWD can be used to specify the MariaDB connection parameters.
  • If you receive an error like “Lost connection to MariaDB server during query” or “MariaDB server has gone away”, you may have to increase your maximum allowed packet size server variable. This can be done by editing the my .ini file in the MariaDB server installation folder. The line to edit, or add if not present, is:

max_allowed_packets=8M

The default is 1M, meaning maximum packet size is 1 MB. Safe Software recommends 8MB (8M) or more if you are reading or writing large geometric features or large blob or text values.

Translation Errors in Workbench

There is a known issue with the MariaDB writer and Workbench Feature Type parameters.

In the Feature Type parameters for the MariaDB writer, the Database User field should be left blank. Entering a username in the field may cause the FME translation to fail. However, even if the translation is successful, MariaDB will not be able to read the resulting table.