Backup failed: connect to database instance failed

[Former Member]

Hi Experts,

The backup in our quality system is getting failed with the following error.

BR0301E SQL error -12705 at location BrDbConnect-2

ORA-12705: invalid or unknown NLS parameter valuespecified

BR0310E Connect to database instance QAS failed

Please help me on this.

Regards,

Surendra.

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hi,

Please refer OSS Note 393620 - Problems through incorrect ORA_NLS33.

Thanks,

Shambo

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hi,

I have temporarily unset the value of the environment variable NLS_LANG by using "export NLS_LANG= ". Previously it was AMERICAN_AMERICA.WE8DEC and the backup was successful after the change. Please could you tell me if I can permanently unset this env variable and will it cause any other problem if I do so?

Thanks,

Surendra.

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hello,

I am a bit surprised that it worked with NLS_LANG unset. Depending on your version of OS, Oracle and SAP default values may be used; there are a few SAP notes regarding this.

As this is your Q-system, I would compare all env variables with the P-system, and adjust appropriately. Backup for P is working, I suppose?

regards

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hi Joe,

The backup is getting failed after changing the value of NLS_LANG to the value in production system (AMERICAN_AMERICA.UTF8).

It is running only if we unset the variable NLS_LANG. Could you please tell me the impact if we permanently unset this variable?

OR is there any alternative to this?

Thanks

Surendra.

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hi,

If your Oracle Version is 9.2 then please refer

OSS Note 849483 - Corrections for BR*Tools Version 7.00

Using BR*Tools 7.00 with Oracle 9.2

-

---

BR*Tools 7.00 is used with Oracle 10g by default. This is also a prerequisite for most of the new features, such as those described above. However, you can also use the tools with Oracle 9.2 in order to use the new database-independent features from patch 7 or 8. To do this, you must first install Oracle Instant Client 10g on the database server.

For Unix platforms, see Note 819829 for more information.

Important: On some platforms, ORA-12705 errors may nevertheless occur in BR*Tools when establishing a connection to the database. In this case, create the following soft link in the Unix system library directory as the "root" user. Example for HP-UX PA Risc:

ln -s /oracle/client/instantclient/libociei.sl /usr/lib/pa20_64

or for SUN Solaris Sparc:

ln -s /oracle/client/instantclient/libociei.so /usr/lib/64

On Windows platforms, the Instant Client must be installed in a separate directory (such as in %ORACLE_HOME%\InstClient, but not in %ORACLE_HOME%\BIN or in the sap-exe directory). Copy the new BRTools into the directory, and delete the old tools from the sap-exe directory. In addition, set the environmental variable SAPEXE to the directory, and include it in the environmental variable PATH. BRTools must have patch level 13 or higher.

Important: These actions are not required if no ABAP application server runs on the database server (for example, if it is a standalone database server or a pure Java database). In that case, you can simply copy BR*Tools 7.00 and the Instant client into the sap-exe directory.

Hope this will help you. You must have to set the NLS_LANG varriable.

Thanks,

Shambo

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hi,

We are using oracle 9.2 but the brtools version is 6.40. The note is specifically about brtools version 7.00.

Regards,

Surendra

Edited by: Surendra Julury on Nov 4, 2009 1:17 PM

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hello Surendra,

you seem to have a quite unusual combination of NLS values in your landscape: AMERICAN_AMERICA.UTF8 in production, and previously AMERICAN_AMERICA.WE8DEC in quality system. From this I gather that your Q system cannot be a copy of P system. Is this correct?

How was Q installed? Did brbackup ever work before you unset NLS_LANG? Did you ever copy parts of P to Q?

Then, for running your SAP system, you will need NLS_LANG, as Shambo pointed out. But there must be some reason for your error message.

regards

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hi Joe,

Yes, we did not copy production data to our Quality because the unix server on which the quality system is running has two more sap systems installed. Recently there was an oracle patch upgrade from 9.2.0.7 to 9.2.0.8 on the other two SAP systems and the patch upgrade is not done for the quality system.

Please find that the backup was running fine before the upgrade.

Is it because of the upgrade on those systems, our Quality system is affected?

I am not completely sure of the value of the variable NLS_LANG before the upgrade.

Regards,

Surendra

Edited by: Surendra Julury on Nov 5, 2009 7:22 AM

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hello Surendra,

your Oracle upgrade is an important piece of information, and I am quite sure that was the reason.

Actually there are a few things how an upgrade of one system can affect other systems on the same host.

What just comes to my mind is this:

1) ORA_NLS33 points to a directory. Was this directory changed during upgrade? Did you check SAP Note 393620, as suggested by Shambo ?

2) Oracle client software may be affected. Location is determined by another environment variable, depending on your flavour of Unix it may be LIBPATH, LD_LIBRARY_PATH, or SHLIB_PATH. Read SAP Note 180430 - Installing the ORACLE client software for UNIX.

3) Maybe several systems are sharing one Oracle listener. Check whether your Q system has a listener of its own! What is the value of environment variable TNS_ADMIN ?

hope this helps

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

One more question:

Did you ever restart your SAP Q system since that Oracle upgrade?

If you didn't, then let me suggest not to try it now. It might not work.

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hi Joe,

I have restarted my Q system twice after the upgrade and it was successful.

Regards,

Surendra.

[former_member524429 · Accepted solution]

Dear Surendra,

Please refer this [SAP Note 602843 - Environment settings for R/3/Oracle on UNIX|https://websmp130.sap-ag.de/sap(bD1lbiZjPTAwMQ==)/bc/bsp/spn/sapnotes/index2.htm?numm=602843].

The client communicates the information defined by NLS_LANG to the server when it connects to the database server. It just sets the local and territory settings.The ora-12705 error is just due to the wrong setting for this variable or a mismatch of character-set.

The problem is caused by the path missing of NLS messeages in Oracle 9.2.0.8. A new variable ORA_NLS33 should be set in the system environment.

e.g.

$ export NLS_LANG=AMERICAN_AMERICA.UTF8
$ export ORA_NLS33=$ORACLE_HOME/ocommon/nls/admin/data

I hope this information will be useful.

Regards,

Bhavik G. Shroff

[Former Member]

Check environment variables of the user who is running brbackup; values will depend on your Oracle version.

But first make sure you are using the correct operating system user, ora<sid> in case of Unix, or <sid>adm in case of Windows.