Oracle 11g XE 64bits installation problem on Windows 7

Question

I had to install Oracle 11g XE on my laptop under Windows 7. So I follow this Tutorial. The installation didn't even fail once, and seem to be OK. But every time i tried to connect to it with SQLPLUS, it failed with ORA-12638 error...

SQL> connect
Enter user-name: system
Enter password:
ERROR:
ORA-12638: Credential retrieval failed

After some search I found this Web Site and attempt to resolve my problem with the second solution. But then I get another kind of error : ORA-01034 and ORA-27101...

SQL> connect
Enter user-name: system
Enter password:
ERROR:
ORA-01034: ORACLE not available
ORA-27101: shared memory realm does not exist
Process ID: 0
Session ID: 0 Serial number: 0

It seem that my database didn't even exist to begin with... And if looking in [...]\oraclexe\app\oracle\oradata\XE, there is no files.

When looking the logs at [...]\oraclexe\app\oracle\product\11.2.0\server\config\log, I found that during the installation process, the application wasn't even able to connect to the database created.

Example in the file : postDBCreation.log

SQL> connect "SYS"/"&&sysPassword" as SYSDBA
ERROR:
ORA-12638: Credential retrieval failed 
[...]
SQL> startup ;
ORA-12638: Credential retrieval failed
SQL> select 'utl_recomp_begin: ' || to_char(sysdate, 'HH:MI:SS') from dual;
SP2-0640: Not connected
SQL> execute utl_recomp.recomp_serial();
SP2-0640: Not connected

Another file in the same directory : CloneRmanRestore.log

SQL> startup nomount pfile="D:\Applications\oraclexe\app\oracle\product\11.2.0\server\config\scripts\init.ora";
ORA-12638: Credential retrieval failed
SQL> @D:\Applications\oraclexe\app\oracle\product\11.2.0\server\config\scripts\rmanRestoreDatafiles.sql;
SQL> set echo off;
SP2-0640: Not connected
SP2-0640: Not connected
SP2-0640: Not connected
ERROR:
ORA-12638: Credential retrieval failed

I am log as a domain user with administration right on the laptop, so why does the installation fail without putting an explicit error ? And how to ensure that the installation of Oracle 11g XE on my laptop work ?

Answer 1

After more than 6 hours to fix this, I found this post which help me to understand the problem.

The problem was that I tried to install Oracle 11g XE with my user account connected on the enterprise domain. The installation process, then, wasn't able to connect to the database. I suspect that it try to connect to it from the enterprise domain, and not from localhost.

To solve this, I had to redo the installation with a local admin account on the computer and not as an admin user on my enterprise domain.

Found another post for reference.

I hope this answer will help other guy which encounter the same problem.

Answer 2

A quick and painless workaround to get a correct installation is to reinstall by constantly (manually) updating the corrected sqlnet.ora file.

1. Do a first graphic install, oracle will be happy but nothing will work (credentials not resolved on login, fancy "realm does not exist" errors etc).
2. Modify sqlnet.ora as told here
3. Uninstall Ora but keep the modified file in place
4. Open sqlnet.ora with a text editor as admin
5. Reinstall while periodically saving the sqlnet.ora file (once every 2 seconds did it for me)

Answer 3

Disabling Windows authentication in oraclexe\app\oracle\product\11.2.0\server\network\ADMIN\sqlnet.ora

# SQLNET.AUTHENTICATION_SERVICES = (NTS)
SQLNET.AUTHENTICATION_SERVICES = (NONE)

And executing oraclexe\app\oracle\product\11.2.0\server\bin\CreateDB.bat after, seems to be enough to repair existing installation.