RE: 9i OO4O/OLEDB connections randomly failing when using Oracle Names

Jesse,

I have had quite a few problems with ONAMES/8.1.7 working nicely with Winders OO/OLE/Other new-mangled technologies. I believe it has to do with malformed packets that cause buffer overflows, and while these occur at layers lower than that of Onames, they do implement themselves as Onames issues. We have had to resort to TNSNAMES.ORA on some Winders boxes for this reason. However, what we did was to send out the TNSNAMES.ORA file with only that specific entry required for the failing app and let the others resolve via ONAMES [ NAMES.DIRECTORY_PATH= (TNSNAMES, ONAMES), i.e. allow TNSNAMES resolution first and ONAMES next for missing entries ]. This way you will need to update TNSNAMES.ORA *only* for changes related to that app.

Hth and GL,
John Kanagaraj <><
DB Soft Inc
Phone: 408-970-7002 (W)  

Co-Author: Oracle Database 10g Insider Solutions http://www.samspublishing.com/title/0672327910  

• The opinions and facts contained in this message are entirely mine and do not reflect those of my employer or customers **

-----Original Message-----

From: oracle-l-bounce_at_freelists.org
[mailto:oracle-l-bounce_at_freelists.org] On Behalf Of Jesse, Rich Sent: Wednesday, December 07, 2005 6:39 AM To: oracle-l
Subject: 9i OO4O/OLEDB connections randomly failing when using Oracle Names

So, we've finally upgraded from the 8.0.5 client to 9.2.0.7.0. During testing, I had used a TNSNAMES.ORA file on the test boxes in order to be able to redirect production DB connections to test. But I had upgraded my PC first and still used our production ONAMES 8.1.7 server, and all was well. And the Guinea Pig initial limited deployment of about 30-40 users using the production ONAMES server also showed no issues.

Of course once we went live (last Thursday), all heckfire broke loose. Some OO4O/OLEDB VB apps would randomly break. Sometimes a program would error out with an ACCVIO at 0x00000000619156bd (sometimes 0x00000000619156b4). And sometimes the app would just silently disappear. And sometimes the apps would work. One user had a different error box popup that had the same error, but also noted the module was orantcp9.dll.

I see MetaLink has a few bugs listed with orantcp9.dll and ONAMES. One says to upgrade ONAMES to 9i. So I installed a test ONAMES 9.2.0.7.0 server on my Linux box and point a test machine's SQLNET.ORA to look at it for ONAMES resolution. Errors disappear! But as my PC isn't production- or backup-ready (in fact the power supply toasted yesterday!) I installed ONAMES 9.2.0.7.0 on a Solaris box and pointed the test box's SQLNET.ORA at it. The apps fail again. What???!?? I toggle the SQLNET.ORA back to my Linux box and all's well again. Huh???

The temporary fix is to replace ONAMES on the Windohs (Citrix) servers with a hardcoded TNSNAMES.ORA, but this is hardly a solution. I don't need the hassle of pushing out 500+ TNSNAMES.ORA files worldwide everytime there's a change to the list of available DBs.

Anyone else experienced this? I've also seen mention that LDAP/OID resolution is affected, but there's no concrete anything on MetaLink. I've opened a TAR also, but thought I'd splatter the issue here. Also, my apologies, but as I'm not a Winders programmer, I don't know what the difference is between the several different methods of connecting a VB or .NET app to Oracle or if I'm even using "OO4O/OLEDB" correctly.

Thoughts???

TIA,
Rich

Rich Jesse                        System/Database Administrator
rich.jesse_at_quadtechworld.com      QuadTech, Sussex, WI USA

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http://www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l Received on Wed Dec 07 2005 - 12:11:48 CST