Protocol violation errors connecting to an Oracle database

Technote (FAQ)
Problem
When a supported Oracle® database returns a protocol violation, the connection is not able to recover. An error similar to the following is logged in the stdout file of the Java™ application. This is the stdout.log for the AppServer and the tracefile for the AdminServer.

[7/12/04 8:11:30:119 BRT] 4dc28b StaleConnecti A CONM7007I: Mapping
the following SQLException, with ErrorCode 17,401 and SQLState <null>,
to a StaleConnectionException: java.sql.SQLException: Protocol violation
Cause
The allocated connection object on the client side is not able to communicate with the resource on the server, so it does not respond to any Java database connectivity (JDBC™) calls. This means that statement and connection objects are never closed. The only way for an Oracle resource manager to release the resource is to orphan it. When the protocol violation message occurs frequently, it results in a memory leak on both the WebSphere® Application Server machine and the Oracle database server.

You might see the number of Oracle database connection objects growing from an Application Server Java process, or the database errors might indicate that there are too many open cursors.
Solution
There are two known instances where IBM® code caused the problem or did not handle the protocol violation message properly.

  • On Solaris Operating System® platforms, the Application Server installation might back-level a Solaris system library. If you are running a V4.0 release on Solaris, upgrade to at least V4.0.3.

  • The connection manager Oracle portability layer did not map the protocol violation to a StaleConnectionException. In this case, install the latest cumulative connection manager fix. This is available from the WebSphere support page.

If you have eliminated these two possible causes for the error, contact Oracle to resolve the Protocol Violation.











Document Information

Product categories: Software, Application Servers, Distributed Application & Web Servers, WebSphere Application Server, Java 2 Connectivity (J2C)
Operating system(s): AIX, HPUX, Linux, Multi-Platform, Solaris, Windows
Software version: 3.5, 4.0, 5.0, 5.1, 6.0
Software edition: Edition Independent
Reference #: 1111466
IBM Group: Software Group
Modified date: 2004-07-29