I remember seeing this problem with Oracle 8.0.4 on HP-UX, but not with Oracle 8.0.6 on Unix or Windows. E.g. sqlplus username/password@tns_alias would be successful But sqlplus Enter username: username@tns_alias Enter password: password Would fail. -----Original Message----- Paul Vincent One other thought, which may have some bearing on the problem. It's always been a peculiarity on this server that, if I open a DOS window and simply type "sqlplus", then I'm asked for a username and password, which I supply, and then I get an error message ORA-12560: TNS:protocol adapter error. If however I type "sqlplus myuserid/mypasswd@DLIB", thereby forcing resolution, everything works fine. None of our other Windows Oracle servers have this peculiarity, so I'd wondered if it was a quirk of 8.0 (this is the only 8.0 server). Now I'm not so sure. Just wondered if this might ring some bells, as it may be linked to my database upgrade assistant problem. ---------------------------------------------------------------- Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe send email to: oracle-l-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx put 'unsubscribe' in the subject line. -- Archives are at //www.freelists.org/archives/oracle-l/ FAQ is at //www.freelists.org/help/fom-serve/cache/1.html -----------------------------------------------------------------