Cannot find OCI dll.

[cliffchan512]

Hi,

Starting from version 9.2.5 to latest version 9.3.9, I encountered an issue which is error 'cannot find OCI dll' when connecting with Oracle instant clients. Prior to version 9.2.5, connection is ok with instant clients in my working environment. Please advice.

Thanks,
Cliff

[AlexP]

Hello,

Please specify where and how you "registered" instant clients: registry, environmental variables, etc.

[cliffchan512]

Hi Alex,

I just have oracle instant client path variables in environment path only.

Thanks,
Cliff

[AlexP]

We cannot reproduce the problem. If you have specified the correct path (to the oci.dll library folder) in the system environmental variable PATH, ODAC will find and load this library. Please make sure the path really exists in this variable by executing the following command in the console:

>echo %path%

P.S. It is desirable that the path to the Oracle client is the first in this variable.

[cliffchan512]

Hi Alex,

I traced into the source code and found that there is a procedure AddToOracleHomes() in the OraCall, the below code returns false so that no entry of instant client path is added to variable FHomes. Then the FDefault was set to nil in the procedure GetDefaultHome(). This is what I know so far, thanks!

Success := RegQueryValueEx(hOracleReg, 'OCIDLL', nil, nil, @HomePath, @Len) = ERROR_SUCCESS

[AlexP]

If a correct path to the folder containing the instant client is specified in the system environmental variable, then the method GetDefaultHome (if no record was found in the registry before) searches in the PATH environmental variable. If you register instant client in the registry, you should add a OCIDLL parameter and specify the path to the library in this parameter.

[cliffchan512]

Hi,

I do not register instant clients in the registry and am sure that correct paths are specified in the system environmental path. I see that the paths are returned in GetEnvironmentPathVariable in GetDefaultHome, however the below condition returns false since the FHomes do not contain instant client path. Then, FDefault is set to nil.

Home := TOracleHome(FHomes);
if ((AnsiStrIComp(PChar(Home.Path + '\'), PChar(Str)) = 0) or
(AnsiStrIComp(PChar(Home.Path + '\bin\'), PChar(Str)) = 0)) and
CheckHomePath(Home.Path)

My oracle client setting works in ODAC version 9.1.4, 8.6.1 those I was trying to update and version 8.1.6 that I was using. But it fails in any versions after 9.1.4.

[AlexP]

The provided code will be executed in the only case - if the FHomes.Count property is not null. Information is added in the AddToOracleHomes method only in case when there are records in the registry. If there are no records and FHomes.Count is null, then the following code is executed:

Code: Select all

  if CheckHomePath(Str) then begin
    FDefault := Add('', Str, '', '', False);
    exit;
  end;

where Str is the path retrieved from the environmental variable, that is checked for presence of oci.dll or ociw32 at this path, and if these files are detected - the path is added to the Homes list and becomes default, from which the DLL is loaded.

[cliffchan512]

Hi,

FHome is not null and there are records in since there are also installed oracle client in my machine.

[cliffchan512]

Hi,

It is the case that if there are both installed and instant oracle clients (don't register in the registry) installed in a machine, the instant client path would not be picked up to be used in this case. Is that correct?

[AlexP]

Yes, currently, if a record about at least one Oracle client is found in the registry, then the path to the client (not registered in the registry) will be ignored in the environmental variables. We will change this behavior in the next version.

[cliffchan512]

Hi,

When will be the next version probably? Since we are going to upgrade from 8.1.6 to a newer version but not yet decided.

[AlexP]

We plan to release the new version next month.