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Oracle 11g listener fails with ORA-12514 and ORA-12505 errors

I run an instance of Oracle 11g locally on my development machine and can connect to the local instance directly via SqlPlus:
c:\>sqlplus ace SQL*Plus: Release 11.2.0.2.0 Production on Mon Mar 11 11:50:20 2013 Copyright (c) 1982, 2010, Oracle. Enter password: Connected to : Oracle Database 11g Express Edition Release 11.2.0.2.0 - Beta SQL> select count(*) from my_table ; COUNT(*) ---------5297 All rights reserved.

But I cannot connect to it via the listener:

c:\>sqlplus -L "user/pw@(DESCRIPTION = (ADDRESS = (PROTOCOL = TCP)(HOST = localhost) (PORT = 1521)) (CONNECT_DATA = (SERVER = DEDICATED) (SERVICE_NAME = XE)))" SQL*Plus: Release 11.2.0.2.0 Production on Mon Mar 11 11:52:40 2013 Copyright (c) 1982, 2010, Oracle. All rights reserved.

ERROR: ORA-12514: TNS:listener does not currently know of service requested in connect descriptor

SP2-0751: Unable to connect to Oracle.

Exiting SQL*Plus

Similarly, if I connect via SqlDeveloper I get an error (albeit ORA-12505, TNS:listener does not currently know of SID given in connect descriptor ). This instance has been stable and working fine for a year or more until today, a Monday morning. Our corporate IT do sometimes push new policies and updates over the weekend, so I'm assuming that something has changed, but I've not been able to work out what. I've restarted the service and the listener several times, the listener log doesn't give any clues. The listener seems fine:
c:\>lsnrctl status LSNRCTL for 32-bit Windows: Version 11.2.0.2.0 - Beta on 11-MAR-2013 11:55:33 Copyright (c) 1991, 2010, Oracle. All rights reserved.

Connecting to (DESCRIPTION=(ADDRESS=(PROTOCOL=IPC)( KEY =EXTPROC1))) STATUS of the LISTENER -----------------------Alias LISTENER Version TNSLSNR for 32-bit Windows: Version 11.2.0.2.0 - Beta Start Date 11-MAR-2013 11:17:30 Uptime 0 days 0 hr. 38 min. 3 sec Trace Level off Security ON : Local OS Authentication SNMP OFF Default Service XE Listener Parameter File C:\oraclexe\app\oracle\product\11.2.0\server\network\admin\listener.ora Listener Log File C:\oraclexe\app\oracle\diag\tnslsnr\FBC305BB46560\listener\alert\log. xml Listening Endpoints Summary... (DESCRIPTION=(ADDRESS=(PROTOCOL=ipc)(PIPENAME=\\.\pipe\EXTPROC1ipc))) (DESCRIPTION=(ADDRESS=(PROTOCOL=tcp)(HOST=machine.domain.com)(PORT=1521))) Services Summary... Service "CLRExtProc" has 1 instance(s). Instance "CLRExtProc", status UNKNOWN, has 1 handler(s) for this service... Service "PLSExtProc" has 1 instance(s). Instance "PLSExtProc", status UNKNOWN, has 1 handler(s) for this service... The command completed successfully

Port 1521 seems ok:

c:\>netstat -an -O | find /i "1521" TCP 0.0.0.0:1521 0.0.0.0:0 TCP 169.243.90.109:55307 159.185.207.100:1521 TCP [::]:1521 [::]:0

LISTENING ESTABLISHED LISTENING

4368 12416 4368

(PID 4368 is TNSLSNR.exe process.) Also, I can tnsping to the XE service:

c:\>tnsping xe TNS Ping Utility for 32-bit Windows: Version 11.2.0.2.0 - Beta on 11-MAR-2013 12:27:47 Copyright (c) 1997, 2010, Oracle. All rights reserved.

Used parameter files: C:\oraclexe\app\oracle\product\11.2.0\server\network\admin\sqlnet.ora

Used TNSNAMES adapter to resolve the alias Attempting to contact (DESCRIPTION = (ADDRESS = (PROTOCOL = TCP)(HOST = machine.domain.com)(PORT = 1521)) (CONNECT_DATA = (SERVER = DEDICATED) (SERVICE_NAME = XE))) OK (210 msec)

The listenerr.ora file:

SID_LIST_LISTENER = (SID_LIST = (SID_DESC = (SID_NAME = PLSExtProc) (ORACLE_HOME = C:\oraclexe\app\oracle\product\11.2.0\server) (PROGRAM = extproc) ) (SID_DESC = (SID_NAME = CLRExtProc) (ORACLE_HOME = C:\oraclexe\app\oracle\product\11.2.0\server) (PROGRAM = extproc) ) ) LISTENER = (DESCRIPTION_LIST = (DESCRIPTION = (ADDRESS = (PROTOCOL = IPC)( KEY = EXTPROC1)) (ADDRESS = (PROTOCOL = TCP)(HOST = machine.domain.com)(PORT = 1521)) ) ) DEFAULT_SERVICE_LISTENER = (XE)

Additionally, and I've no idea if it is related, I can't seem to access apex on https://127.0.0.1:8080/apex (even though the permissions for that seem fine). So where else should I be looking? Update with requested information:
SQL> show parameter service_names NAME TYPE VALUE ------------------------------------ ----------- -----------------------------service_names string XE SQL> show parameter local_listener NAME TYPE VALUE ------------------------------------ ----------- -----------------------------local_listener string

Update2: as @miracle173 correctly points out, the listener was not fine. With the updated 'local_listener' parameter now shows extra information:
Listening Endpoints Summary... (DESCRIPTION=(ADDRESS=(PROTOCOL=ipc)(PIPENAME=\\.\pipe\EXTPROC1ipc))) (DESCRIPTION=(ADDRESS=(PROTOCOL=tcp)(HOST=machine.domain.com)(PORT=1521))) (DESCRIPTION=(ADDRESS=(PROTOCOL=tcp)(HOST=127.0.0.1)(PORT=1521))) Services Summary... Service "CLRExtProc" has 1 instance(s). Instance "CLRExtProc", status UNKNOWN, has 1 handler(s) for this service... Service "PLSExtProc" has 1 instance(s). Instance "PLSExtProc", status UNKNOWN, has 1 handler(s) for this service... Service "XEXDB" has 1 instance(s).

Service "XEXDB" has 1 instance(s). Instance "xe", status READY, has 1 handler(s) for this service... Service "xe" has 1 instance(s). Instance "xe", status READY, has 1 handler(s) for this service... The command completed successfully
oracle oracle-11g listener

edited Mar 12 '13 at 9:08

asked Mar 11 '13 at 12:03 Unsliced 141 1 8

What are the values of your INSTANCE_NAME initialization parameter and ORACLE_SID environment variable? Your database doesn't register with the default listener for some reason. Try to issue alter system register; and then re-connect to to the database. Yasir Arsanukaev Mar 11 '13 at 14:03 @YasirArsanukaev instance_name is 'xe' (lower case if that is relevant) and I don't have an ORACLE_SID environment variable. Unsliced Mar 11 '13 at 14:07

two notes: "the listener seems fine": I don't think so because it does not display a service named "XE" "I can ping the XE service": tnsping connects to the listener but it does not bother about services. so you can only show if the listener is up and running but you cannot use ist to check if the listener has registered a service. So tnsping " (DESCRIPTION = (ADDRESS = (PROTOCOL = TCP)(HOST = localhost)(PORT = 1521)) (CONNECT_DATA = (SERVER = DEDICATED) (SERVICE_NAME = XE)))" will succeed if a listener is running on port 1521 of localhost even if the service does not exist. miracle173 Mar 12 '13 at 8:14

1 Answer
So, with thanks to @YasirArsanukaev for the time he put in, I have found a solution which works, but which I can't really explain. Riffing on the LOCAL_LISTENER thought, I was reading this other answer where it said: The database uses the LOCAL_LISTENER parameter to identify the listener it should register with. By default that is null, which according to the documentation is equivalent to hostname:1521. So I tried to ping my own hostname and couldn't - it looks like some IPv6 problem, receiving a general failure message. So I took the advice from that answer
SQL> alter system set LOCAL_LISTENER='(ADDRESS=(PROTOCOL=TCP)(HOST=localhost) (PORT=1521))' scope=both; SQL> alter system register;

and it now works, presumably because it can resolve the localhost reference, where it was failing the resolve the actual hostname.
edited Aug 29 '13 at 17:13 Community 1 answered Mar 11 '13 at 14:54 Unsliced 141 1 8

you actually eyplained the solution: the automatic regristration of the database to the default LOCAL_LISTENER='(ADDRESS=(PROTOCOL=TCP)(HOST=hostname)(PORT=1521))' (where hostname is the network name of the machine) did not work because there is a problem to reach the machine under this name. Maybe there is an entry in the alert.log or in some sqnlnet.log (%ORACLE_HOME%/network/log/) about the registration problem of the database miracle173 Mar 12 '13 at 9:37