Which PC Memory Module type (SDRAM, DDR, or DDR2) do I need?

Adding more memory to PCs is a cheap and easy upgrade method. But there are different types of PC memory modules available – SDRAM, DDR, DDR2 – and computers are limited to being compatible with one type only. So you have to know which type you want before buying, especially if buying online. 1) To […]

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November 9, 2007

Installing dbms_profiler

I used the following to install dbms_profiler, using a central set of system owned tables rather than each user having its own tables: conn / as sysdba @?/rdbms/admin/profload.sql conn system/password alter user system default tablespace users ; — [or any other reasonable tablespace] @?/rdbms/admin/proftab.sql GRANT all ON plsql_profiler_runnumber TO PUBLIC; GRANT all ON plsql_profiler_data TO […]

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June 22, 2007

Listener passwords: always for 9i, never for 10g

My rule of thumb: For 9i and below: always set a listener password (= change from default) For 10g and above: never set a listener password (= leave at default) And here’s why: 9i and below Without a listener password set, any ‘oracle’ account on any machine (even a client) can stop and change listeners […]

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May 24, 2007

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plan_table changes

In versions 10g, plan_table exists as a public synonym of the global temporary table sys.plan_table$. That is all created automatically at database create time and when a database is upgraded to 10g (creation is in catplan.sql, which is called from catproc.sql and u*.sql scripts in $ORACLE_HOME/rdbms/admin). In versions 9i and below, plan_table is not created […]

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May 23, 2007

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Fix for TOAD error ORA-02404: specified plan table not found

TOAD can report error “ORA-02404: specified plan table not found” when trying to display execution plans: Two options to fix: Run script toadprep.sql. This creates the table toad_plan_table, among other things, and is meant to be run by a user with DBA privileges. or Change TOAD to use the same plan table (= plan_table) that […]

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May 23, 2007

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Quick SQL Server Training for Oracle DBAs

Short SQL Server Training course uploaded in MS-Word format.. Also same in pdf format. It’s a bit dated now – is for SQL Server version 7.0 – but still relevant. I’ll update for version 2005 and convert to html format when I get the chance. I produced that for a 1.5 day training course to […]

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May 2, 2007

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10.2.0.3 patch fails if database word size had ever been changed in the past

Thanks to Chris Carr for pointing out this: If you are upgrading or patching to 10.2.0.3 and the word size is different to the word size when the database was created the upgrade will fail with an ora-600. This applies even if the wordsize has been changed in an interim upgrade i.e. 8.1.7 32bit upgraded […]

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May 2, 2007

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What SQL and sessions are running?

GUIs like TOAD and Enterprise Manager can show this better, but they’re not always to hand. Every session active now or within the last minute is shown. set pages 9999 lines 132 col username form a20 col osuser form a20 col program form a50 col minutes form 999 alter session set nls_date_format = ‘Dy DD-Mon-YYYY […]

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April 20, 2007

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Data block corruption cleared with alter system flush buffer_cache

So I had: ORA-08103: object no longer exists being reported on SQL affecting one application table. But that table existed ok in dba_tables, could be described ok, and selects restricted to its indexed columns returned data ok. Suspicion was some sort of data block corruption. Rman backup logs had not reported any corrpution, but dbverify […]

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April 19, 2007

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