Hello everyone,
I ran into a connection problem when upgrading from FME Desktop 2021 (21812) to FME Form 2025 (25836) and wanted to share the details and the fix in case it helps others.
In FME Desktop 2021, I was using version 3.14.5 of the JDBC driver for Snowflake, and we were initializing a complete connection string with a key pair:
- Advanced Connection Parameters
- Connection String with user, warehouse, db, schema, role, private_key_file, private_key_file_pwd.
It worked fine for years. Now migrating to FME Form 2025, I encountered a weird behavior.
For a workspace from the 2021 version opened with the 2025 version, the Snowflake connection doesn’t work. Upgrading the transformers and the readers doesn’t change anything. It is really the database connection not working in the options. I got this message:
COM.safe.fme.jdbc.TranslationFailureException: java.lang.IllegalStateException: Unable to verify current schema and / or database
But for some completely strange and mysterious reason, the same workspace works perfectly in FME Flow 2025 (25836) !!! The connection is initiated, reading and writing works fine.
I checked the different versions of the JDBC driver between the server and the desktop, and they are indeed the same. They are both using the 3.26.1.jar.
So I tried to see if it is due to the environment, and I added the JAVA_TOOLS_OPTION suggested in the documentation in the environment variables for my desktop… it doesn’t change anything. Furthermore I never used it with FME 2021 nor the server for FME FLOW 2025 use it.
Then I tried the new settings from FME Form 2025, with a built-in authentication for the keypair, it doesn’t work and there is not much documentation about it so I gave up.
I tried an older version, FME Form 2024 using the driver 3.19.0, it didn’t worked as well.
However, I tried replacing the drivers of both 2024 and 2025, using the 3.14.5.jar… and it works!
So the problem was caused by a behavior change in newer Snowflake JDBC drivers and probably that FME developers are struggling to make it works properly.
I hope this post will help some people struggling with snowflake connections,
Alexandre