I was setting up a test instance for one of our development groups today and came across a rather strange error, which I have only encountered once before. Of course I forgot the solution and tried to google it, but found no successful solutions. Thus, this article: A friend of mine tried metalink and found the answer; I have been shying away from metalink since the website redesign.

I was trying to configure the listener for this new system. At first I configured listener.ora as I normally would and the listener appeared to start okay, however when I performed the lsnrctl status command I received the following error:

TNS-12541: TNS:no listener
TNS-12560: TNS:protocol adapter error
TNS-00511: No listener
HPUX Error: 239: Connection refused
Connecting to (DESCRIPTION=(ADDRESS=(PROTOCOL=IPC)(KEY=EXTPROC)))
TNS-12541: TNS:no listener
TNS-12560: TNS:protocol adapter error
TNS-00511: No listener
HPUX Error: 239: Connection refused

I immediately went to the standby solution in this scenario and started up netca the network assistance tool to configure the listener and received the exact same error. Below is listed the solution in order of trial and error, I am not sure if this is limited to HP-UX itanium machines or not, but that is where I received the error.

Credit goes to: Muhil Jayaraman, One of the best Core Oracle DBA’s and EBS DBA’s I know. He is proof that after 15 years as an Oracle DBA, you can still learn new things by working with great people.

1. Started the listener with command lsnrctl start.

$ lsnrctl start

Connecting to
(DESCRIPTION=(ADDRESS=(PROTOCOL=TCP)(HOST=192.168.0.110)(PORT=1521)))
STATUS of the LISTENER
————————
Alias LISTENER
Version TNSLSNR for HPUX: Version 10.2.0.4.0 – Production
Start Date 23-MAR-2010 14:22:42
Uptime 0 days 0 hr. 0 min. 0 sec
Trace Level off
Security ON: Local OS Authentication
SNMP OFF
Listener Parameter File /u01/oracle/network/admin/listener.ora
Listener Log File /u01/oracle/network/admin/listener.log
Listening Endpoints Summary…
(DESCRIPTION=(ADDRESS=(PROTOCOL=tcp)(HOST=192.168.0.110)(PORT=1521)))
(DESCRIPTION=(ADDRESS=(PROTOCOL=ipc)(KEY=EXTPROC)))
Services Summary…
Service “PLSExtProc” has 1 instance(s).
Instance “PLSExtProc”, status UNKNOWN, has 1 handler(s) for this service…
Service “orcl” has 1 instance(s).
Instance “orcl”, status UNKNOWN, has 1 handler(s) for this service…
The command completed successfully
$

2. The listener appears to start okay, however when you perform the command lsnrctl status you receive an error message.

$ lsnrctl status

Connecting to
(DESCRIPTION=(ADDRESS=(PROTOCOL=TCP)(HOST=192.168.0.110)(PORT=1521)))
TNS-12541: TNS:no listener
TNS-12560: TNS:protocol adapter error
TNS-00511: No listener
HPUX Error: 239: Connection refused
Connecting to (DESCRIPTION=(ADDRESS=(PROTOCOL=IPC)(KEY=EXTPROC)))
TNS-12541: TNS:no listener
TNS-12560: TNS:protocol adapter error
TNS-00511: No listener
HPUX Error: 239: Connection refused
$

3. Checking the OS layer and you see that no listener is currently running, with the command ps –ef.

$ ps -ef |grep tns
ORCL 21362 8423 0 14:24:15 pts/4 0:00 grep tns
$

4. SOLUTION: Add parameter SUBSCRIBE_FOR_NODE_DOWN_EVENT_LISTENER=OFF to listener.ora file.

5. Start the listener with the command lsnrctl start.

$ lsnrctl start

Connecting to
(DESCRIPTION=(ADDRESS=(PROTOCOL=TCP)(HOST=192.168.0.110)(PORT=1521)))
STATUS of the LISTENER
————————
Alias LISTENER
Version TNSLSNR for HPUX: Version 10.2.0.4.0 – Production
Start Date 23-MAR-2010 14:25:05
Uptime 0 days 0 hr. 0 min. 0 sec
Trace Level off
Security ON: Local OS Authentication
SNMP OFF
Listener Parameter File /u01/oracle/network/admin/listener.ora
Listener Log File /u01/oracle/network/admin/listener.log
Listening Endpoints Summary…
(DESCRIPTION=(ADDRESS=(PROTOCOL=tcp)(HOST=192.168.0.110)(PORT=1521)))
(DESCRIPTION=(ADDRESS=(PROTOCOL=ipc)(KEY=EXTPROC)))
Services Summary…
Service “PLSExtProc” has 1 instance(s).
Instance “PLSExtProc”, status UNKNOWN, has 1 handler(s) for this service…
Service “orcl” has 1 instance(s).
Instance “orcl”, status UNKNOWN, has 1 handler(s) for this service…
The command completed successfully

6. Check the status of listener with the command lsnrctl status.

$ lsnrctl status

Connecting to
(DESCRIPTION=(ADDRESS=(PROTOCOL=TCP)(HOST=192.168.0.110)(PORT=1521)))
STATUS of the LISTENER
————————
Alias LISTENER
Version TNSLSNR for HPUX: Version 10.2.0.4.0 – Production
Start Date 23-MAR-2010 14:26:07
Uptime 0 days 0 hr. 0 min. 15 sec
Trace Level off
Security ON: Local OS Authentication
SNMP OFF
Listener Parameter File /u01/oracle/network/admin/listener.ora
Listener Log File /u01/oracle/network/admin/listener.log
Listening Endpoints Summary…
(DESCRIPTION=(ADDRESS=(PROTOCOL=tcp)(HOST=192.168.0.110)(PORT=1521)))
(DESCRIPTION=(ADDRESS=(PROTOCOL=ipc)(KEY=EXTPROC)))
Services Summary…
Service “PLSExtProc” has 1 instance(s).
Instance “PLSExtProc”, status UNKNOWN, has 1 handler(s) for this service…
Service “orcl” has 1 instance(s).
Instance “orcl”, status UNKNOWN, has 1 handler(s) for this service…
Service “testdb” has 1 instance(s).
Instance “testdb”, status READY, has 1 handler(s) for this service…
Service “testdbXDB” has 1 instance(s).
Instance “testdb”, status READY, has 1 handler(s) for this service…
Service “testdb_XPT” has 1 instance(s).
Instance “testdb”, status READY, has 1 handler(s) for this service…
The command completed successfully

7. Check at the OS layer to see if the listener is running with the command ps –ef.

$ ps -ef|grep tns
ORCL 21440 1 0 14:26:07 ? 0:00 /u01/oracle/bin/tnslsnr LISTENER
-inherit
ORCL 21835 21821 0 14:27:28 pts/4 0:00 grep tns
$

And the problem with listener is resolved.

Larry J. Catt, OCP 9i, 10g.
oracle@allcompute.com
www.allcompute.com