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Oracle Troubleshooting

LRM-00109: could not open parameter file

Symptom:

When trying to start up Oracle, the following error is encountered:

LRM-00109: could not open parameter file '...'
ORA-01078: failure in processing system parameters

Cause:

Oracle could not open the init-ora file. Typically this is because either the init-ora file is in a different directory to the one Oracle is looking in, or it has a different name to what Oracle expects.

By default the init-ora file is located in the directory:

{ORACLE_HOME}/Database

and is called:

init{ORA_SID}.ora

Possibly Remedies:

• Check the name and location of the init-ora file. Then when starting the database specify explicity the location of the initialisation file, i.e.

  Startup pfile='<full-pathname-of-initialisation-file>'

• If the database is the 'default' database then set the location of the init-ora file in the registry. (This possibly only applies to Oracle 7?) This should be specified in the registry under the key 'HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ Software \ Oracle'. Add the values:

ORACLE_SID = "<SID>"
PFILE_<SID> = <full pathname of init file>

This page represents one page of many pages of notes I made whilst working with Oracle 7 through to 10i. I now no longer work with Oracle databases, but hope that these notes will continue to be of benefit to others.