Fun with ORA-28547 and ORA-12571

I'm trying to get an Oracle instance configured with OBIEE for an Exadata POC. Mostly, it just getting all these disparate "security" tables into a single database.

As I was building out some reports to drive some iBots, I kept getting connection problems. I thought it had to do with the fact that I had multiple Oracle clients installed (10g and 11gR2), as I had problems with that before.

I could tnsping the database:

F:\>tnsping exadata

TNS Ping Utility for 32-bit Windows: Version 11.2.0.1.0 - Production on 01-APR-2010 15:42:29

Copyright (c) 1997, 2010, Oracle.  All rights reserved.

Used parameter files:
c:\oracle\product\11.2.0\dbhome_1\network\admin\sqlnet.ora

Used TNSNAMES adapter to resolve the alias
Attempting to contact (DESCRIPTION = (ADDRESS = (PROTOCOL = TCP)(HOST = localhost)(PORT = 1521)) (CO
NNECT_DATA = (SERVER = DEDICATED) (SERVICE_NAME = EXADATA)))
OK (0 msec)

just fine, but I couldn't connect.

F:\>sqlplus cjustice/testing

SQL*Plus: Release 11.2.0.1.0 Production on Thu Apr 1 15:42:33 2010

Copyright (c) 1982, 2010, Oracle.  All rights reserved.

ERROR:
ORA-28547: connection to server failed, probable Oracle Net admin error

Interesting.

I then removed any references from the PATH to the 10g client.

Same thing.

Testing it through the ODBC applet gave me this:



I checked the listener.ora file...nothing out of the ordinary. No references to HS (as one of those errors mentions). I then opened up Net Manager (which I never do), changed the trace level to Administrator and then tried to log in again:

F:\>sqlplus cjustice/testing@exadata

SQL*Plus: Release 11.2.0.1.0 Production on Thu Apr 1 15:55:49 2010

Copyright (c) 1982, 2010, Oracle.  All rights reserved.

ERROR:
ORA-01034: ORACLE not available
ORA-27101: shared memory realm does not exist
Process ID: 0
Session ID: 0 Serial number: 0

Ah...interesting. The server isn't even running. WTF?

SQL> startup;
ORA-00065: initialization of FIXED_DATE failed

And there you have it.

Just before I shut down the database, I set FIXED_DATE just before shutting down. Not only did I do that, but I issued:

ALTER SESSION SET NLS_DATE_FORMAT = 'MM/DD/YYYY HH24:MI:SS' ;

Thankfully I was able to

CREATE PFILE FROM SPFILE;

I then edited that, removing the FIXED_DATE setting and voila! I was up and running again.