We encountered an error with a Perl script that processes data in an Oracle database. A few details:
- Server: 64-bit version of Windows Server 2003 R2
- Oracle: 10.2.0.4
- Perl: ActivePerl 5.10 64-bit, build 1005
So, the perl script connects to the Oracle database and runs SQL to load data from another database. It runs SQL through the sqlplus command line, for example:
$resultString = `sqlplus $connectString \@sqlScript.sql $var1 $var2`;
{names have been changed to protect the innocent}
Now, what a strange thing is that last night the perl script database runs on a blue screen and restarts. When the perl script was launched yesterday morning, the same thing. We tracked it down to the line above in perl code, which tried to connect to a database that was disconnected on the weekend.
I can reliably reproduce the error on the server in question, but not on another win2003 64-bit server (the same perl install).
Does anyone have any idea why a system call (when it received an ORA-12500 error) would cause the server to crash? I have not had the opportunity to search for dump files, but so far I cannot collapse anything else with the same base environment.
UPDATE: . It was found that two servers (one of which was broken, one of them was not) were not fixed at the same level, and they did not have the latest updates. Thus, both were fixed and the tests ran again. One that has not crashed has not yet crashed. The one that is still there. Thought I'd drop it there if someone thought about the stains.