tnsnames won't resolve after installing Oracle Designer 6i

[macknox]

Hello, I'm dead new at this, but I've got a lot of experience with other systems.

I have successfully installed PersonalOracle for 98 on my Windows ME system. Now to keep up with the book that I have purchased, I needed to install Designer 6i Release 2. I have done so, apparently successfully, but when I attempt to start the designer, it says that:

TNS could not resolve service name
Could not connect to repository.

There is a tnsnames file in c:\OracleD\Ora81\NET80\Admin. The first folder is called OracleD because it wouldn't let me install the designer into the Oracle Home at c:\Oracle\. I didn't know what to do there, so I created a new home called OraDesigner and put it at c:\OracleD.

Somewhere I have done something wrong, or a whole slough of things. The current status is that I can still connect to the sample database using PersonalOracle, but cannot connect to the Designer 6i database.

Any clues are appreciated.

 

[macknox]

Hmmmm. It would seem that the problem is that you can't run Designer 6i in a PersonalOracle only environment. It won't work on Local, against a local database.

Could this be correct?

Thanks,

Kevin

 

[carp]

Check to see if there is a tnsnames.ora file in your Designer home. If there is, that is where Designer is looking to resolve tns aliases. You can copy the tnsnames.ora file from your Oracle_Home to your Designer home, and that should take care of the problem for now. However, this also means that you will now have to maintain two network directories in parallel, which can be a pain! A better way is to set the environmental variable TNS_ADMIN to point to your ORACLE_HOME/network directory. Now all Oracle products will look at the files in this directory when they are trying to resolve a tns alias - your admin overhead is reduced!

 

[THoey]

Also, if you are used to an older version of Oracle like I was, there is something else to think of. I installed Oracle 8.1.6 and made the necessary entries to connect to an existing 7.3.4 database. When I tried to connect, it would fail, listing the "TNS" error. I verified the correct entry in the TNSNAMES.ORA file, but still got the error. Eventually, I tried adding the domain name (ie, CFONE@SBC.COM, instead of just CFONE) and it connected right away.

I have been told that there is an environment variable you can set that will get around this additional typing, but I have gotten used to it now. Terry M. Hoey
th3856@txmail.sbc.com
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