Re: ORA- 12505

nimk_at_hotmail.com wrote in message <881495720.26613_at_dejanews.com>...
>I have Oracle 7.2 running on NT 3.51. I two have two databases, ORCL
>and DEVL. I created the DEVL database via the Instance manager.
>When I set the SID in the registry I have no problems connecting
>to either databases. However when I try to the 16-Bit database tools
>I can only connect to the ORCL database. When I try to connect
>via SQL*PLUS 3.1, I get ORA-12505, error message. I also get the same
>problem using Server Manager 2.1. I have checked the that the listener
>processes are running. I also used the TNSPING utility to check that the
>aliases as correct.

16bit tools need 16bit SQL*Net - and you have by default a seperate TNSNAMES.ORA file for the 16bit SQL*Net. It contains the default ORCL TNS entry whuch is why you can connect to the ORCL instance, but not the new DEVL instance you've created - only the 32bit TNSNAMES.ORA file was updated with this entry (which is why TNSPING.EXE works).

There's an environmental variable that can be used for locating the TNSNAMES.ORA file. Setting this variable to point to the 32bit TNSNAMES.ORA file is easier that keeping two versions of TNSNAMES.ORA in sync. But then, I could never remember the name of this enviromental variable or how to set it.. :-)

regards,
Billy Received on Mon Dec 08 1997 - 00:00:00 CST