Oracle Datasource Connectivity in 32 bit Cognos 8 in a 64 bit environment

[dannygutters]

I'm trying to get cognos 8.4 up on my 64 bit windows server and most of the datasources are working correctly but not the oracle. I have tried migrating and creating new datasources and the same error occurs.

"ORA 12154 TNS could not resolve the connect identifier specified"

this is confusing because I can connect to this alias fine via tnsping and sql*net, and the content store is on the same box and that works (tho configuration doesn't use a tns alias).

I have Oracle Home and TNS_ADMIN defined in my environment and restarted the service.

I have verified that I am using the 32 bit Oracle client libraries by checking tnsping output (is there a more reliable way to do this?)

this connection works on a test 8.4 box in a 32x environment, the settings seem the same environment variable wise. Any Ideas?

[Allen Krause]

I had this problem when setting up an addtional Production server.  if you can TNS ping the database you want and login to it withSQLplus you definitely have connectivity from the server.  ensure the following:

1. Verify all database names and oracle connection strings are within the TNSnames files.

2. Ensure the connection strings are excate

3.  Double check the database name and user/name p/w if there are any set for the database in the cognos datasouce

[prikala]

I have Oracle Home and TNS_ADMIN defined in my environment and restarted the service.

Are you running C8 service as yourself? If not, ensure that TNS_ADM is set in the system environment also.

With environment problems like this, it sometimes helps to temporarily start C8 via c8\bin\startup.bat so you can be sure it uses your environment variables.