ORA-12203 from Forms Builder...

[ReggieHaseltine]

...whenever I try to connect to a remote (over the Internet) Oracle8i database server. I am fairly certain I have the tnsnames.ora entry set up properly. I can connect just fine with SQL*Plus. I get the ORA-12203 (TNS: unable to connect to destination) when using either Forms Builder 9i or 6i. Is there something in the Forms Builder product that prohibits client/server connections that are not over a LAN?

Thanks for any help on this.

 

[lewisp]

I assume you can connect using the PC version of SQL*Plus? Whats the version number of your SQL*Plus exe?

Can you ping the server from your PC, and if that works have you tried tnsping as well?

Make sure the 'communities' in your sqlnet.ora and tnsnames.ora files match. eg., if your default domain is WORLD make sure your tnsnames entries are <name>.WORLD.

 

[ReggieHaseltine]

Thanks for responding.

Yes, I'm using the SQL*Plus that comes with Personal Oracle8i as downloaded from Oracle's Technet site. I should have mentioned this I guess.

I have two Oracle Homes. Personal Oracle8i is in c:\oracle\ora8i and Oracle Forms 9i uses c:\oracle\OracleForms9i. I've tried the &quot;Switch Homes&quot; utility several times to no avail.

The tnsnames.ora and sqlnet.ora files in c:\oracle\OracleForms9i\Net80\Admin both look fine and neither has .world. The net service name in tnsnames.ora doesn't have &quot;.world&quot; and there is no default domain directive in sqlnet.ora. My Oracle Forms is definitely using this tnsnames.ora file since if I remove the net service name I get the &quot;cannot resolve name&quot; error.

Yes, I can ping and tnsping the server.

But there's something that Oracle Forms doesn't like since it immediately responds with the ORA-12203 error. I don't believe it ever even tries to reach the server since the error comes up so fast.

 

[sem]

The easiest way is to define TNS_ADMIN string value in the registry to point to the %database_home%\net80\admin directory ( c:\oracle\ora8\net80\admin in your case). This will make another Oracle product located in another HOME to use the same tnsnames.ora/sqlnet.ora files. This key should be located under HKLM/Software/Oracle/HomeI, wher I is the number of Oracle home of the new product. Regards, Dima

 

[ReggieHaseltine]

Dima,

Thanks. This does force Oracle Forms 9i to use the common tnsnames.ora file that is in the Personal Oracle 8i home, but I still get the ORA-12203 error.

Here's my tnsnames.ora entry:

<net_service_name> =
(DESCRIPTION =
(ADDRESS_LIST =
(ADDRESS = (PROTOCOL = TCP)(HOST = <remote_ip_addr>)(PORT = 1521))
)
(CONNECT_DATA =
(SERVICE_NAME = <service_name>)
)
)

I have valid values for &quot;net_service_name&quot;, &quot;remote_ip_addr&quot; and &quot;net_service_name&quot; but didn't want to post them here to have the whole world trying to connect to this database.

Reggie