Word and ODBC mail merge problem

I have the following ODBC/mail merge problem in MS Word 6.0 for Windows:

Using MS Word 6.0 for Windows, SQL*Net 2 for TCP/IP, NetManage Chameleon 4.1 (TCP/IP stack), Oracle ODBC drivers 1.11.0002, and grabbing data from an Oracle 7 database.

I run MS Word and tell it I want to set up a mail merge. For the data source, I tell it to use MS-Query. In MS-Query, I specify the data source as the ODBC/Oracle source that I had previously set up. MS-Query brings up a list of tables in the database. I choose one table with approx. 1,000 records. I select all the columns in the table. I choose "File...Return Data to Word." At this point, Word's status bar says something like "Reading record 1." This is where my problems lies. If I do this procedure on a PC that is attached to the LAN (16MBps Token Ring), this procedure works fine, Word gets the data, I say OK to the mail merge setup, and I can run the merge fine.

If I do the same procedure on a PC that is attached via a dial-up PPP (point-to-point protocol) connection for the IP connection, sometimes it works and sometimes not. I am dialing up with a V.34 modem on both-ends and connecting to an NT 3.5 RAS server on the other end. I dial up at 57,600 bps port speed. I have not been able to get this procedure to work correctly at lower speeds at all. Sometimes it works at 57,600 and sometimes not. If it fails, it always fails in the same place, which is when I select "File...Return Data to Word" from MS-Query. Word says "Reading record 1" and it just *hangs* there.

My hypothesis is that since the only real difference between the PC on which this procedure always works and the PC on which this procedure sometimes works is that the one which always works is attached directly to the Token Ring. The one which sometimes fails is on PPP dial-up. Perhaps this link is too slow? Is Word somehow timing-out? Are there any setting changes I can make in Word or SQL*Net or ODBC to fix this problem? Also, why does it sometimes work at 57,600 bps and sometimes not, even within the same dial-up session? My hypothesis is that the modem speeds are adaptive and during the session the speeds go up and down. Maybe when we try it and it works this is because we have high enough throughput; when we try it and it does not work, maybe this is because the throughput has dropped because of the adaptive speeds (i.e., noise on the line, etc.)? Could this be the case? Would using a Level 2 ODBC driver solve this problem?

This certainly appears to be an MS-Word problem. Within the same sessions and connection I can run my Oracle Forms 4.0 application accessing data off of the remote Oracle 7 database and I *never* have problems with this. In addition, even using ODBC to grab data within MS Query, I can always view the data just fine. It's just in returning the data to MS Word for the mail merge where Word does this "reading record 1" that I have this problem.

Any comments would be greatly appreciated. Please reply to: Paul_Sternlieb_at_mail.amsinc.com

Thanks!
--Paul Sternlieb
  Paul_Sternlieb_at_mail.amsinc.com Received on Thu Mar 02 1995 - 21:56:43 CET