How to unlock a locked table without re-starting the instance?

Dear all,

Background information:
[Quoted] Our retail system is implemented on Oracle 8.05 on Windows NT 4 SP3 (with Y2K patch), the programs are developed in Delphi 4. However, this project is [Quoted] an out-sourced one, the vendor knows only Delphi (connection through BDE) but nothing about Oracle.

The problem:
A table called [schema].temp is locked at least for 2 times when the user is [Quoted] running a report, the report has normally been ok, but just these 2 times of [Quoted] pending. When it happens, whoever runs this report will be suspended forever. I checked the Instance Manager, no users except me and Oracle are active. This table is locked and no more locks can be retrieved at that moment. I will receive a message something like 'the resource is locked by someone else, you have to use nowait parameter'. Actually it doesn't work with nowait parameter, either. Our Oracle DBA, who has 3 years of Oracle experience, says a table is not normally locked in this way, and the only way to solve this is to re-start the instance (database), and he suggests to [Quoted] do it by stopping and re-starting the instance services. I did it, it works, [Quoted] but I can expect this problem to happen again.

I want to figure out:
1.What are the possible reasons that cause this problem? Anything related to [Quoted] the application? To the development tools? To the Operations Systems? To the [Quoted] network environment? Or to the database system? 2.How can we monitor the locking status of a database object? Who's having the lock and what kind of lock?
3.What can I do to solve this problem without re-starting the database?

Any comments will be highly appreciated. Thanks in advance. By the way, because I don't usually have time to check the USENET news, please also e-mail me copy to Dino Hsu <dino1_at_ms1.hinet.net> so that I know you replied. Thanks again.

Dino
[Quoted] ITS, Avon Cosmetics Taiwan Received on Sun May 28 2000 - 00:00:00 CEST