I had ORA-12500 errors each time I tried to connect to a database on a particular server:
C:\>sqlplus system@livsost1
SQL*Plus: Release 11.2.0.3.0 Production on Fri Feb 7 11:05:18 2014
Copyright (c) 1982, 2011, Oracle. All rights reserved.
Enter password:
ERROR:
ORA-12500: TNS:listener failed to start a dedicated server process
Enter user-name: system@ebesost1
Enter password:
ERROR:
ORA-12500: TNS:listener failed to start a dedicated server process
Enter user-name:
Logging in to the server as the oracle UNIX user gave a clue to the cause of the problem:
login as: oracle
oracle@sge-mktred-dev1's password:
Last login: Thu Feb 6 09:13:51 GMT 2014 from 10.80.14.248
Compaq Tru64 UNIX V5.1B (Rev. 2650); Tue Jun 13 17:14:04 BST 2006
No mail.
task_create() failed for pid 479503: max_proc_per_user (=1024) exceeded for uid 200.
task_create() failed for pid 479503: max_proc_per_user (=1024) exceeded for uid 200.
task_create() failed for pid 479503: max_proc_per_user (=1024) exceeded for uid 200.
task_create() failed for pid 479503: max_proc_per_user (=1024) exceeded for uid 200.
I logged in as root and saw several defunct processes all associated with process 431167:
root > ps -ef|grep oracle|grep defunct|grep 431167|more
oracle 2311 431167 0.0 - ?? 0:00.00 <defunct>
oracle 8250 431167 0.0 - ?? 0:00.00 <defunct>
oracle 9459 431167 0.0 - ?? 0:00.00 <defunct>
oracle 11819 431167 0.0 - ?? 0:00.00 <defunct>
oracle 12526 431167 0.0 - ?? 0:00.00 <defunct>
oracle 12814 431167 0.0 - ?? 0:00.00 <defunct>
oracle 13421 431167 0.0 - ?? 0:00.00 <defunct>
etc
So I counted them:
root > ps -ef|grep oracle|grep defunct|grep 431167|wc -l
427
root >
Then I found out where they came from:
root > ps -ef|grep 'oracle 431167'
oracle 431167 210307 0.0 Feb 01 ?? 1-07:14:58 /oracle/app/oracle/product/grid/agent10g/bin/emagent
root >
I decided to kill the process. It’s just the Oracle Enterprise Manager agent so I can start it again afterwards:
root > kill 431167
… and the problem went away:
C:\>sqlplus system@livsost1
SQL*Plus: Release 11.2.0.3.0 Production on Fri Feb 7 11:36:28 2014
Copyright (c) 1982, 2011, Oracle. All rights reserved.
Enter password:
Connected to:
Oracle9i Enterprise Edition Release 9.2.0.7.0 - Production
With the Partitioning option
JServer Release 9.2.0.7.0 - Production
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