Dick, You really need to know what the various sessions and background processes are waiting for. Ususally we do this by looking at v$session_wait. If you can't run anything, including 'alter session set events 'immediate trace name hanganalyze level 3;', then you can attach to a running oracle process with a symbolic debugger and force the process to dump a systemstate or hanganalyze. Please see Metalink note 121779.1 (http://tinyurl.com/2tr9dw). If you substitute ksudss() with ksdhng() in the above document, you can force the process to dump a more practical hanganalyze dump instead of a systemstate dump. A hanganalyze is easier to read and also more likely to succeed. To interpret hanganalyze dumps, see note 215858.1 (http://tinyurl.com/3y6bl6). -- Jeremiah Wilton ORA-600 Consulting http://www.ora-600.net ________________________________________ From: oracle-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:oracle-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Richard J. Goulet One of the problems we're having is that we can't execute anything except "shutdown abort". Anything else just runs off into lala land. -- //www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l