we have recently upgraded the Oracle client from 11.0.2.4 to 18c. However, an old .NET application that used to work is no longer connected to any Oracle database.
Does anyone know whether there are compatibility issues between the Oracle.ManagedDataAccess.dll and Oracle versions? I haven’t found any concrete reference so far. The version of our Oracle.ManagedDataaccess.dll is 4.121.2.0
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I know that the request may look somehow weird but I am trying to develop a .Net application using EF and Visual Studio 2010 against a ORACLE 10g DB.
Initially I tried with EF4 which is the embedded one in VS2010 and with ODP11 I am able to make it work. But due to some specific bugs in EF4 (StoreGeneratedPattern bug) I want to go to EF5 or EF6.
While "googleing" a bit I was able to Install EF6 using the nugets and adding the context generator for EF using the following explanation:
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/data/jj206878.aspx
The problem here is that the system is not able to find a proper ODP provider for Entity Framework as I only have ODP11 installed.
Again after investigating a bit :) I saw I need ODP12 which will have full support to EF. My problem here is that all servers will be working with OraClient 11g against a Ora10g DB... I know there is no major problem (at least for the use I need) to use Ora11Client with a Ora10Server but what about ODP? I cannot change the Oracle client and I am wondering whether I can face any issue by having my application developed with ODP12 and being executed in a machine with Ora11g Client.
Is anyone having some advice on this?
Thanks a lot in advance!!
It's my understanding that the managed driver for 12 (Oracle.ManagedDataAccess and Oracle.ManagedDataAccess.EntityFramework available on NuGet) will connect to 10.2 and above and does not require ANY client installed on the computer as it contains the client it needs. It just gets installed in the app's bin directory. Be aware though that it doesn't seem to currently work with .NET 4.0 in case you're still targeting that. The 4.0 version of Oracle.ManagedDataAccess.EntityFramework shows up on NuGet as a beta version and is actually compiled against .NET 4.5.
ODP.NET 12.x has a dependency on the Oracle 12 client software so you cannot use it with the 11 client stack. You can use ODP.NET 12 to connect to databases going back to version 10.2.
You can embed the ODP.NET, unmanaged client stack in your app by using the Xcopy download, or you could use the ODP.NET, Managed Driver which is just one DLL and less than 10 MB in size.
Oracle has the concept of an "Oracle Home" (subdirectories) to allow multiple versions of software to run side by side. So that version 11 Client on your servers can exist alongside with the version 12 software you deploy there.
I had to connect my Oracle 10g XE (10.2.0.1) with Visual Studio 2012.
Since I found that 10g is not compatible now, so I want to migrate it to higher version - 12c.
I have successfully installed Oracle 12c Enterprise Edition, but it's upgrade assistant says that you have to upgrade your 10g (10.2.0.1) to the version 10.2.0.5, then DB can be migrated to 12c.
Question: How to upgrade Oracle 10.2.0.1 to 10.2.0.5 ?
I couldn't find the patch links from internet, I have searched a lot on the internet but didn't not get an amazing solution that resolves my problem in one shot.
This message is an error in the installer. It is applicable to other editions of Oracle (for example to a Standard Edition) but XE does not have such version as 10.2.0.5. Even with an Oracle support contract paid, there is simply no such version on metalink. You need to export-import like described in this question.
You need a metalink account to download this patch (legally); it's probably easier to export the database and import it into a fresh 12c instance.
I have a very simple application on .Net that connect to Oracle using ODP (was compiled with Oracle.DataAccess dll 10.2).
I want to check "connection prerequisite" (application will be able to connect to DB) before installing this aplication on other computers?
How can I check that ODP.NET version 10.2 or higher is installed on target host (registry check is not enopugh)?
I know that I can check ODP entries in registry - but this will not check Oracle Client and compatibility between client and ODP.
Also, if ODP was installed by ODAC XCopy installation - registry may be not updated by new ODP entry.
And - if I am installing on the computer, DB was installed on, Oracle Client can be not installed separately.
And one more issue: When I tried to run "test connection" method from installation, that use referenced dll on machine, that has only ODAC (with ODP) 11, - "Oracle.DataAccess.Client.OracleException The provider is not compatible with the version of Oracle client at Oracle.DataAccess.Client.OracleInit.Initialize()
at Oracle.DataAccess.Client.OracleConnection..cctor()" error message was thrown (policies for both ODAC 10.2 and 11 are exists in GAC (assembly), pointing to Oracle.DataAccess 11 from ODP 2x bin).
So, How and which components can I check to ensure appropriate versions of ODP and Oracle Client were installed and application will be connected?
Thank you in advance!
You can use the DataProvider Factory Classes from .Net. This will show all data providers that are available to your current .Net installation / process. I have a blog post here on how to do it. I put it in place to prevent our users from using versions of Oracle that were not supported with .Net 4.0.
http://blog.tsells.com/2011/05/12/oracle-11g-release-2-and-net-framework-4-0-and-version-checking/
I recently found out that Oracle is not supporting the .net 4.0 framework with any version of the Oracle Provider for .Net prior to 11.2.0.2. (See Oracle Data Provider for .NET (ODP) Supported Configurations [ID 726240.1] from oracle support for more details).
Since the prior versions work (10.2, 11.1, 11.2.0.1) then I needed a way to prevent end users from using the wrong version. I searched the net and could not find any one who was able to do this so I did some digging. After some testing I came up with the following code.
System.Data.Common.DbProviderFactory factory =
System.Data.Common.DbProviderFactories.GetFactory("Oracle.DataAccess.Client");
if (factory == null)
return false;
Type t = factory.GetType();
int majorversion = t.Assembly.GetName().Version.Major;
// Do not allow any major versions less than 4
if (majorversion < 4)
return false;
This code will use the same data provider that is registered with the .net framework version you are using. This ensures you are not out of sink in your environment and allows you to inspect the version of the dll installed. For this example – I am just checking that ODP is 4.0 or higher (first release of odp for .net 4).
I may be asking the wrong question here, I'm willing to change it if so.
I have a project that is using the Microsoft.NET Oracle provider (our plan is to change to ODP but we haven't done so yet).
I am trying to get this project to build on a windows 2008 (x64) build server. It builds just fine but our unit tests fail when they hit stuff on the Oracle database.
I had initially installed the 32bit oracle 9i client which is what we currently use on our winxp dev boxes and the previous 2003 build server. But now this gets a message like: Attempt to load Oracle client libraries threw BadImageFormatException. This problem will occur when running in 64 bit mode with the 32 bit Oracle client components installed.
We tried compiling to the x86 platform but that didn't change the error message.
I now have the 11g 64 bit client installed but I am getting a message saying System.Data.OracleClient requires Oracle client software version 8.1.7 or greater.
So what Oracle install should I be using?
Edit:
I was able to get this to work. Turned out it was the testing causing the problem, by forcing NUnit to run in 32bit mode: Link I was able to get the tests to work using the old 32 bit driver. This would be a crappy answer to the question so I am not using it but will gladly award the correct answer to anyone putting in some good info on transitioning to Oracle 64bit drivers.
When it comes to Oracle, I like to use Oracle Instant Client :
You don't have to install anything on the target machines (including dev boxes !).
You can make sure that your application will run with the specific client you picked.
You could even easily have multiple applications work with different client versions on the same computer.
As a downside, it adds a significant weight to your application (~19Mb minimum).
Check What is the minimum client footprint required to connect C# to an Oracle database? for more information. To know how to set up a Visual Studio project that will work on x86 as well as x64 machines, check my blog post Oracle Instant Client in Visual Studio.
I'm adding a new answer since as of this fall (2012) the ODP Managed Code Beta is available. See this link for more information. It is for us highly stable and we are using it in production, mainly because of these reasons:
No installation (except for entity framework where a simple registration is needed)
It is smaller than the unmanaged version, the footprint is approx 6 MB.
It is NOT "bit sensitive", ie Any CPU will finally work with ODP :)
More intuitive mapping C# types <-> Oracle types (and it solved some problems with EF and model generation from database)
Supports EZCONNECT (all versions of the unmanaged ODP did not), ie no more tnsnames.ora hassles.
But for transitioning to 64 bit, download the managed ODP driver and change the Oracle.DataAccess reference to Oracle.ManagedDataAccess and recompile :)
I think the message "System.Data.OracleClient requires Oracle client software version 8.1.7 or greater" it's similar to "Oracle client not installed, installed but not found or installed but it's needed 8.1.7 or greater".
Check on regedit if the values are right under the key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\ORACLE\KEY_OraOdac11g_home1
Where OraOdac11g_home1 depends on the Oracle Home name for your installation.
Also, try to connect through Visual Studio to see if its possible.
I have had an issue which could relate to what you are seeing.
I initially had the just the Oracle 10g client installed on my machine and the .Net Oracle.DataAccess component version number was 10.2.0.100 - this was for .Net runtime v1.0.3705
I installed ODP.Net and the Oracle.DataAccess component version is now v2.102.2.20 and runs on .Net runtime v2.0.50727 - I cant find the reference as to why Oracle did this - it was something to do with bringing version numbers in line with the runtime version
It took me a day to work this out. We dont use the 11g client yet and I havent used the 8i client for ages so I dont know what the version numbers would be for those clients, but I'd check it if I were you what.
In short, Oracle back-tracked the component version numbers which could be making your 11g component appear out-of-date as opposed to Oracle 8i components
I have found many times that the error "requires Oracle client software version 8.1.7 or greater" is a notoriously misleading error. From distant memory I seem to remember that this usually indicates a file IO permissions problem. I think it may be that the ASP.NET worker process (or whichever identity an application is running under) requires some sort of read or write permission to a folder in the oracle client folder hierarchy...
This can be a cause of multiple oracle homes in the environment. Remove the older version oracle home in your build system. try generating the build again with the single home. There are some issues with 9i version ODP.NET and 10G/11G connectivity
After quite some time developing with Oracle Client 9.2.0.7, and the ODP.NET to go with it, targeting .NET 1.1, we are upgrading our code line to .NET 3.5 and we are also considering upgrading the Oracle Client version.
I wonder if there are any "gotchas" as to whether specific versions should be used/not used?
For example Oracle Client 9.2.0.4 was known to be buggy with .NET and the upgrade to 9.2.0.7 was non optional.
Apparently the current Oracle Client version is 11.1.0.7.0 (from here). Has anyobody had specific issues with this version and would recommend other version? Sometimes installing the latest release isn't the best choice...
Take a look at the following document from Metalink, it might help. It contains a matrix of ODP Driver Version, Supported Operating System, SQL*Net, RDBMS, .NET Framework, and Visual Studio.
Subject: Oracle Data Provider for .NET (ODP) Supported Configurations
Doc ID: 726240.1
If all you need to do is talk to Oracle, then you can use my instructions found here for the Oracle 11 Client XCopy deploy.
The latest version is the only version that you can use if you have visual studio 2008 unless you don't want any of the snazzy add ins that Oracle provides with it (such as SQLPlus and such). I use the latest version to connect to a 10g database just fine.