As a matter of fact, when I strace the indexserver, it says
[pid 11866] access("/usr/sap/HDB/home/.odbc.ini", R_OK) = 0
so it finds the .odbc.ini alright (I've copied it to admin home, too), so I'm out of options, the strace has no further hints. Hana does not try to open the drivers. Just to avoid the silly: Studio runs on my local machine, Hana on remote. I hope the Studio does not try to read the config or the drivers on the local machine?
-- Micha