How to keep alive the connection in PL/SQL Developer? - oracle

I am using PL/SQL Developer 11.0.4.1774. In my work, I need to use database whole day. Sometimes, during 30-60 minutes, I do not use ide and when I need to use it again, it requires reconnection.
I do not want to reconnect, is there any way to keep the connection alive whole day?

Go to Tools --> Preferences and click "Check connection". It pings the database every 60 seconds, making the session active and avoids idle session disconnects caused by profiles.
NOTE: This question and answer are for Allround Automations PL/SQL Developer. See this question if you're looking for Oracle SQL Developer.

you need check 'IDLE_TIME' and 'CONNECT_TIME' setting for your user profile
select * from dba_profiles
where resource_name in ('IDLE_TIME','CONNECT_TIME')
http://docs.oracle.com/cd/B19306_01/server.102/b14200/statements_6010.htm
If a user exceeds the CONNECT_TIME or IDLE_TIME session resource
limit, then the database rolls back the current transaction and ends
the session. When the user process next issues a call, the database
returns an error.
I have PL/SQL Developer opens for days and don't have the issue
my PL/SQL Dev Tools-Prefernces-connection settings are:
Session Mode = Multy Session
Check connection = unchecked
Logoff with open transaction = Commit
and TIME settings are:
PROFILE RESOURCE_NAME RESOURCE_TYPE LIMIT
1 DEFAULT IDLE_TIME KERNEL UNLIMITED
2 DEFAULT CONNECT_TIME KERNEL UNLIMITED

Install the Reconnect plug-in so at least reconnecting can be a simple button-press.
Possibly against the intention of the DBA (if the issue is due to profile/resource manager settings), but you might try setting a Sessions window (or other report/query etc) to auto-refresh every 25 minutes or so.
Edit: I see on the Bar Solutions website the developer has moved Reconnect from "Plugins" to "Old Plugins". At my current client site I can't install plugins, so I can't tell whether it still works at the moment.

Related

Oracle Keep Alive Test SQL_NET.EXPIRE_TIME not working

I have been trying to successfully configure oracle database 11g with dead connection detection keep alive settings without changing any tcp settings. I went into $ORACLE_HOME/network/admin/sqlnet.ora and set the oracle keep alive to 10 minutes (SQL_NET.EXPIRE_TIME = 10). I also went into tnsnames.ora file and added the ENABLE=BROKEN parameter to the net_service_name. In one terminal I find the Oracle session process ID and then open a second terminal where I use the Linux trace tool to verify there is a write after 10 minutes. Unfortunately there is no write after 10 minutes. The only time there is a write is when the original oracle session being traced is disconnected or there is activity being performed in this session. I am trying to figure out how to resolve the issue of not seeing a write every 10 minutes to verify the server process sent an empty packet to the client.

Oracle session inactivity timeout

I connect to my Oracle database using SQL developer. The current idle time is set to 15 minutes of inactivity. I have sys dba privileges.
In the database, I did the following:
Alter profile {the profile my account belongs to} limit IDLE_TIME 10;
COMMIT;
Then, I stopped and started the database for good measure. Verified the idle time was still set to 10. It was.
Back in SQL developer, I start a new database session, ran a query, got the intended results. Stayed idle for 11 minutes, ran the same query once more, and it let me do so. My session hadn't timed out.
Am I missing something here?
UPDATE
I found out that I had to completely shutdown SQL developer and start it up once more for the changes to stick.

Set oracle user password expiry/grace period

I have an application storing it's data in an Oracle 11g Express Edition database. When the Oracle user password is starting to expire (entering grace period), the application is throwing an exception (ORA-28002) and just stops working. I need to find a way to keep the application running during that period and inform an administrator, so the password can be changed before it expires.
However my real problem is, I need to set my database user in that grace period so I can program and test my application and see if my code works. I tried to change the expiry date in dba_users, but I do not have the required privileges to do so. I'm not even sure this is the correct approach.
What could I do to make the database server think my user account will expire soon so I can write code to handle that event?
You'll need privileges to do so at the database level. A normal user cannot even explicitly lock or expire his own account. (You can lock it by purposely using the wrong password if your profile is setup so)
The only other way I know to expire your user (without a database level command) is to fool the database by setting the clock forward.
If you don't have DBA privs, it is unlikely that you have privs to change the system clock.
I tried to change the expiry date in dba_users, but I do not have the
required privileges to do so. I'm not even sure this is the correct
approach.
No, don't make changes to DBA_USERS. You would need to alter the PASSWORD_GRACE_TIME for the DEFAULT profile using "ALTER PROFILE" command. All associated changes require ALTER PROFILE system priv to do so. So, without DBA privs, you can't do it.
Look in USER_USERS
It will give you the logged in user's own expiry date so that your application can warn the user ahead of the account expiring.
Solved:
Somehow my database admin changed the user profile from DEFAULT to EXPIREPROFILE. Then I modified the password life time and grace period of the profile:
ALTER PROFILE EXPIREPROFILE LIMIT PASSWORD_LIFE_TIME 1;
ALTER PROFILE EXPIREPROFILE LIMIT PASSWORD_GRACE_TIME 21;
I expired the account and changed the password. When I looked into dba_users the password expiry date was tomorrow. But after that the account didn't expire right away, it entered the 21 days grace period.
Now I can write code to handle this specific situation and test it. Thanks everyone for your help :)

Oracle ALTER SESSION ADVISE COMMIT?

My app to recovers automatically from failures. I test it as follows:
Start app
In the middle of processing, kill the application server host (shutdown -r -f)
On host reboot, application server restarts (as a windows service)
Application restarts
Application tries to process, but is blocked by incomplete 2-phase commit transaction in Oracle DB from previous session.
Somewhere between 10 and 30 minutes later the DB resolves the prior txn and processing continues OK.
I need it to continue processing faster than this. My DBA advises that I should prefix my statement with
ALTER SESSION ADVISE COMMIT;
But he can't give me guarantees or details about the potential for data loss doing this.
Luckily the statement in question is simply updating a datetime value to SYSDATE every second or so, so if there was some data corruption it would last < 1 second before it was overwritten.
But, to my question. What exactly does the statement above do? How does Oracle resolve data synchronisation issues when it is used?
Can you clarify the role of the 'local' and 'remote' databases in your scenario.
Generally a multi-db transaction does the following
Starts the transaction
Makes a change on on database
Makes a change on the other database
Gets the other database to 'promise to commit'
Commits locally
Gets the remote db to commit
In doubt transactions happen if step 4 is completed and then something fails. The general practice is to get the remote database back up and confirm if it committed. If so, step (5) goes ahead. If the remote component of the transaction can't be committed, the local component is rolled back.
Your description seems to refer to an app server failure which is a different kettle of fish. In your case, I think the scenario is as follows :
App server takes a connection and starts a transaction
App server dies without committing
App server restarts and make a new database connection
App server starts a new transaction on the new connection
New transaction get 'stuck' waiting for a lock held by the old connection/transaction
After 20 minutes, dead connection is terminated and transaction rolled back
New transaction then continues
In which case the solution is to kill off the old connection quicker, with a shorter timeout (eg SQLNET_EXPIRE_TIME in the sqlnet.ora of the server) or a manual ALTER SYSTEM KILL SESSION.

ORA-03113: end-of-file on communication channel after long inactivity in ASP.Net app

I've got a load-balanced (not using Session state) ASP.Net 2.0 app on IIS5 running back to a single Oracle 10g server, using version 10.1.0.301 of the ODAC/ODP.Net drivers. After a long period of inactivity (a few hours), the application, seemingly randomly, will throw an Oracle exception:
Exception: ORA-03113: end-of-file on communication channel at
Oracle.DataAccess.Client.OracleException.HandleErrorHelper(Int32
errCode, OracleConnection conn, IntPtr opsErrCtx, OpoSqlValCtx*
pOpoSqlValCtx, Object src, String procedure) at
Oracle.DataAccess.Client.OracleCommand.ExecuteReader(Boolean requery,
Boolean fillRequest, CommandBehavior behavior) at
Oracle.DataAccess.Client.OracleCommand.System.Data.IDbCommand.ExecuteReader()
...Oracle portion of the stack ends here...
We are creating new connections on every request, have the open & close wrapped in a try/catch/finally to ensure proper connection closure, and the whole thing is wrapped in a using (OracleConnection yadayada) {...} block. This problem does not appear linked to the restart of the ASP.Net application after being spun down for inactivity.
We have yet to reproduce the problem ourselves. Thoughts, prayers, help?
More: Checked with IT, the firewall isn't set to kill connections between those servers.
ORA-03113: end-of-file on communication channel
Is the database letting you know that the network connection is no more. This could be because:
A network issue - faulty connection, or firewall issue
The server process on the database that is servicing you died unexpectedly.
For 1) (firewall) search tahiti.oracle.com for SQLNET.EXPIRE_TIME. This is a sqlnet.ora parameter that will regularly send a network packet at a configurable interval ie: setting this will make the firewall believe that the connection is live.
For 1) (network) speak to your network admin (connection could be unreliable)
For 2) Check the alert.log for errors. If the server process failed there will be an error message. Also a trace file will have been written to enable support to identify the issue. The error message will reference the trace file.
Support issues can be raised at metalink.oracle.com with a suitable Customer Service Identifier (CSI)
Add Validate Connection=true to your connection string.
Look at this blog to find more about.
DETAILS:
After OracleConnection.Close() the real database connection does not terminate. The connection object is put back in connection pool. The use of connection pool is implicit by ODP.NET. If you create a new connection you get one of the pool. If this connection is "yet open" the OracleConnection.Open() method does not really creates a new connection. If the real connection is broken (for any reason) you get a failure on first select, update, insert or delete.
With Validate Connection the real connection is validated in Open() method.
Check that there isn't a firewall that is ending the connection after certain period of time (this was the cause of a similar problem we had)
end-of-file on communication channel:
One of the course of this error is due to database fail to write the log when its in the stage of opening;
Solution check the database if its running in ARCHIVELOG or NOARCHIVELOG
to check use
select log_mode from v$database;
if its on ARCHIVELOG try to change into NOARCHIVELOG
by using sqlplus
startup mount
alter database noarchivelog;
alter database open;
if it works for this
Then you can adjust your flashrecovery area its possibly that your flashrecovery area is full
-> then after confirm that your flashrecovery area has the space you can alter your database into the ARCHIVELOG
This error message can be thrown in the application logs when the actual issue is that the oracle database server ran out of space.
After correcting the space issue, this particular error message disappeared.
You could try this registry hack:
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\Parameters]
"DeadGWDetectDefault"=dword:00000001
"KeepAliveTime"=dword:00120000
If it works, just keep increasing the KeepAliveTime. It is currently set for 2 minutes.
The article previously mentioned is good. http://forums.oracle.com/forums/thread.jspa?threadID=191750 (as far as it goes)
If this is not something that runs frequently (don't do it on your home page), you can turn off connection pooling.
There is one other "gotcha" that is not mentioned in the article. If the first thing you try to do with the connection is call a stored procedure, ODP will HANG!!!! You will not get back an error condition to manage, just a full bore HANG! The only way to fix it is to turn OFF connection pooling. Once we did that, all issues went away.
Pooling is good in some situations, but at the cost of increased complexity around the first statement of every connection.
If the error handling approach is so good, why don't they make it an option for ODP to handle it for us????
//First start the database in mount mode
startup mount
//Disable archivelog
alter database noarchivelog
//Then put db in open
alter database open

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