On Dec 20, 2007 4:54 PM, Ted Coyle <oracle-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > Niall, > > Make sure someone didn't try starting another instance. > That was my first thought too. I don't believe that to be the case here though. > Not sure why you require a trailing slash in your system. I don't have > trailing slash and all works fine. > . oraenv calls dbhome which greps /etc/oratab to set the ORACLE_HOME - in our oratab which had been manually edited the ORACLE_HOME string had a trailing slash. The instance would have originally been started after setting the environment using oraenv as well, so I think that that together with Dan and Dimitri's explanations nails the problem down. Thanks everyone. Niall -- Niall Litchfield Oracle DBA http://www.orawin.info