Hi, I couldn't follow the complete thread. So someone might have already posted this info. There is a timeout for shutdown (I think starting from 9iR2) which defaults to 60 minus. If the active calls (!) don't complete in that time, the instance just updates the alertlog and doesn;t shutdown its own. You need to shutdown abort. It is not documented btw :D ___ Best Regards, K Gopalakrishnan=20 Co-Author: Oracle Wait Interface, Oracle Press 2004 http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/007222729X/ -- //www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l