TNS,can not handle the service name when two different version installed together

Question

In our server,we publish a asp.net application,which use the oracle11g as the database.

We just set the connection string in the web.config,it works.

However someone install the oracle8 in the same server since they need them in other client application.

But after that,our web applcation can not work,we get the error:

ora-12154 TNS an not handle the service name

Then I found that the path environment has been changed. The "C:/app/oracle81/bin" is added at first. But even I change the "D:/app/oracle11g/bin" first,it does not work also.

Any idea to make the both work?

Answer 1

You might investigate what drivers are being used within .NET ... Microsoft's deprecated Oracle provider or Oracle's own provider or some kind of ODBC provider sitting on top of several kinds of possible drivers in a DSN. Each might be remedied in a different way.

But it sounds like the Oracle 8 installation has stolen priority over the Oracle 11 installation in some way that is not just the "PATH" environment variable. My guess would be the registry. In ascending order of inconvenience and effectiveness you could try:

1) Run the Oracle 11 installer and see if it knows about the Oracle 8 home. (Unlikely if it's 8.0). Set it as default or top of the list; exit; then go back and set Oracle 11 as the default/top of the list.

2) Configure the TNS entries in your Oracle 8 home to connect to your Oracle 11 database. Live with the fact you're using a very out of date client.

3) Uninstall and reinstall Oracle 11 to get it to steal back the priority.

Answer 2

By default the .net framework uses the FIRST oracle directory it comes to the in the path statement. There have been some discussions on how to get around this - but your best bet is to run one client per machine.