Designer 2021.3 (and 2021.2 previously) crashing when unselecting input and output tools

[DanielPM]

Hello, I'm having an issue with Designer that doesn't seem widespread within our organization (dozens of others with licenses) and that I cannot find a solution or even related info for online.

When I select an input tool and use a SQL Server connection, I MUST click Data sources, Microsoft SQL Server -> ODBC and type in the username / password to the connection for it to work. Even if I want to re-use the 'recent' connection, as soon as I unselect the input tool, Designer will crash (Alteryx is not responding type of crash). Connection strings typed directly into the 'connect a file or database' textbox result in a crash upon deselecting the input tool as well. 

The same thing is now happening with output tools - if I simply select an output tool on some workflows (specifically ones aimed at shared drive locations, but even ones aimed at local directories), as soon as the tool is unselected designer crashes. 

There's a little pause before the crash occurs - maybe a second or so. I am pretty sure the crash is occurring while Designer attempts to validate the connection, input or output. It's about the time you would expect the validation to complete - so you unselect the tool, there's a slight delay, and then there is either an error on the connection, or no error. Instead mine just stops responding. 

This did NOT happen in 2019 version of designer, but my organization's gallery updated to 2021.2 and I began seeing this issue. We have since upgraded to 2021.3, still seeing the issue. 

I have tried:
-Reinstalling designer

-Installing admin / non-admin designer client

If anyone has any ideas or has even seen this issue before, I am all ears. 

[BrandonB · Accepted solution]

Hi @DanielPM it is probably worth submitting a case to Alteryx Support here: https://community.alteryx.com/t5/Support/bd-p/SupportPage 

Is it possible that this is network related? If it is only impacting one machine out of a larger group, are you sure that the connection is set up the same way as all of the other machines as well as the driver? 

[DanielPM]

Yep you were right, it was actually driver related. The SQL Server ODBC driver version I needed was 13, but had 17 installed. Thanks for the info.