Oracle TNS: net service name is incorrecly specified

Question

Help! I\'m a newbie to Oracle who\'s trying to access a database on an old server we inherited for a client.

I\'m confident I have the oracle database and listener start

Answer 1

Are you trying a local connection (e.g. "sqlplus u/p") or a network connection (e.g. "sqlplus u/p@pnews10s.world")? Are they both giving you the same error?

The TNSPING by definition is using a network connection. I see some references that indicate you can get the 12612 error when using a local connection. So that is a possible explanation why you are seeing the error from SQLPlus but not TNSPING. If so, try doing a network connection instead.

The local connection not working is probably due to ORACLE_SID not being set correctly as John suggested, but his syntax may not be the right method for whatever shell you are using. Make sure you are using the correct method for the given shell, such as "export ORACLE_SID=name" or "setenv ORACLE_SID name".