Snapshot replication possibily no longer updating all daughter databases

Hi,

I am an Oracle newbie, and I have an oracle database to support after taking over from an outsourced IT management firm.

Our database is Oracle 7.3.4, and our applications have never been validated on a later version.
We have one central Oracle database, which contains a stored procedure that updates data in the mother database (2 instances on the machine : central db = podx, mother db = codx), so podx updates codx, and clients connect via modem to our site, and execute a snapshot refresh that should contain tell the daughter to update itself according to everything that has happened on codx (the mother).

Following a constraint problem that I had problems solving, I tried restoring a backup of all codx data files, but not solving the problem, I restored the original file.

I have since corrected the constraint problem by executing a pl/sql script that re-populated codx with podx data, and now codx has correct data and is running ok.

We have tested the replication via snapshots on 3 machines : 2 customer platforms and an internal test machine. One customer downloaded 17 mb in 92 minutes before I killed his connection, as I was warned by our previous dba that a corrupted snapshot log could corrupt their DB. Our internal test platform refreshed for over 40 minutes (over a 100 mb LAN, updating over 2 months of data, and that replicated DB seems fine. The third client refreshed for 8 minutes, downloaded about 150 k of data and closed, updating the information of the day, but it does not seem to have repopulated the db as the first customer was (17 meg plus download)...

I have almost no oracle experience, and I am out of ideas.

Is there a way to check the snapshots that a client will rerun, and is there a method to force-replay a snapshot for a customer (like replay a snapshot that worked for a customer for whom it did not ?)

Not knowing really how the snapshot method really works, I am afraid of reprocessing data, and setting the system clock back for any repair work as I do not know how Oracle will react in the future !!!

All and any help appreciated!!!

Cheers,
Daniel Received on Sun Dec 22 2002 - 08:44:34 CST