I have a workbook which makes a connection to a mysql database. Using Excel 2016, the connection is a matter of providing the database endpoint (a URL), the database name, the username and the password.

My workbooks have no problem making the connection. But I have a partner in another location and suddenly he's having issues connecting.

Typically I save the workbooks to dropbox, then my partner will download them and also make the db connection with no issue.

Yesterday I changed the password to the db (which is an AWS mysql db). I provided the pwd to my partner but couldn't get the db connection to work. To try to solve the prob, he emailed me the workbooks, then I pasted in the new pwd, tested the workbook to make sure it connected, changed the filename, then reuploaded to drobbox.

He downloaded the new files and still can't make the connection. This is the error message he's getting:

notproperlyformed.png

When I google it I find myself in tech/coding forums that don't address this in ordinary "Excel" terms. Any advice? Thanks.