sqlplus problem

I am running Oracle 7.3.4 under Unixware 2.1.2 on a Compaq Proliant server.

Recently I wrote a brief report query which does a join between three moderate sized tables and the output is sorted. I run this script three different ways.

1. Log into the Unix server and enter: sqlplus -s scott/tiger @rpt1
2. Log into another identical server that has sqlnet v2 and enter: sqlplus -s scott/tiger_at_svr1 @rpt1 (where svr1 is the tnsnames.ora for the server where the database resides).
3. Open a dos command window on a Windows NT workstation which has sqlnet and sqlplus installed and enter: plus33.exe -s scott/tiger_at_svr1 @rpt1

I never encounter any problems with the first two forms, but with the third form I get a consistant error that the rdbms is unable to allocate shared memory for the sort.

Now, I've already figured out that changing the SORT_AREA_SIZE and SORT_AREA_RETAINED_SIZE will fix the problem. What I don't understand is why the problem wasn't consistant across all three forms. If I was low on memory for sorts then shouldn't the failure always occur?

Ken Received on Tue Jul 06 1999 - 07:06:26 CDT