Dave Smith has been blogging about the issues with ST_Geometry on Oracle 10g.
Recently two ESRI customers have reported problems to ESRI Technical Support after upgrading to Oracle 10.2.0.4. The Oracle upgrade appears to be deleting some schema elements we require for the spatial type (ST_GEOMETRY). Uninstalling the upgrade to restore the prior version of Oracle does not work. ESRI is in contact with Oracle and we are working together to understand and quickly resolve the problem in this Oracle 10.2.0.4 patch upgrade.
It is a weird issue that came up and a problem on Oracle’s end. What is even more bizzare is that it really hasn’t gotten much play on ESRI’s Support Forums.
There is a thread in the support forums, but it really isn’t that clear to what the problem is and how to fix it (well we know there needs to be a patch, but that isn’t really spelled out on the forums).
I can only speculate that either that there aren’t many Oracle users rushing to upgrade to 10.2.0.4 or there aren’t many Oracle SDE users dealing with ST_Geometry. This is a really weird situation if you ask me if it trickles down from a regional office.
“This isn’t the support you are looking for”
13 responses so far ↓
1
Lefty
// Apr 9, 2008 at 8:35 pm
OK, the Obi wan reference is hilarious. I have Coke all over my laptop screen James. We run Oracle, but thankfully we are well behind the curve on upgrades.
Love the new blog look btw. Looks very nice.
2
James Fee
// Apr 9, 2008 at 8:39 pm
Where have you been Lefty? Haven’t seen you around much lately.
3
Bill
// Apr 9, 2008 at 10:08 pm
The other thing to consider is that maybe there may not be that many Oracle SDE users that are using ST_GEOMETRY. I know our customer site migrated from SDE binary to SDO geometry a few years ago. They’d be reluctant to leave the native Oracle type move to a third-party type again.
This could mostly be an issue for recent 9.2 installs but that’s just speculation on my part.
4
Lefty
// Apr 9, 2008 at 10:12 pm
Been in the basement writing a new e911 application (or at least attempting to fix our existing one).
Good to be back in the real world though.
@Bill: That could be a good reason, but lets be honest that this is a huge issue for those who get caught up in it. There might only be 10 users who might fall into this trap, but those 10 users could have a ruined day. This kind of stuff should be more visible on the support page as James said.
5
Brendan
// Apr 10, 2008 at 3:45 am
We were putting off the ST_Geometry upgrade because of a reported bug in the ESRI database that spatial views wouldn’t work with the new type - we depend on them. They told us there was a high commitment to resolving it at 9.3. I just took a peek, and it seems they have a workaround now, but there are lots of other bugs related to ’spatial view ST_Geometry’.
6
Bill
// Apr 10, 2008 at 4:22 am
@Lefty
I agree that it’s a big issue for those using ST_GEOMETRY. I wasn’t try to minimize it, just speculating. Bottom line is that it should be more visible.
7
M@
// Apr 10, 2008 at 5:29 am
Our shop uses sdo_geometry and a recent Oracle upgrade destroyed spatial view performance, noticable not only in SDE but also when just using native Oracle functions. We found an Oracle fix, but it was really frustrating that Oracle would break it’s own stuff.
8
KipterUh
// Apr 10, 2008 at 9:07 am
We’ve had some very weird things going on with Oracle (outside of ESRI world) lately with their updates. I’m not sure why is going on over there in Redwood City, but we’ve seriously thought about going DB2 lately.
9
pardner
// Apr 10, 2008 at 3:44 pm
This an example of the weak platform support we’ve come to expect. “Oracle 10.2.0.4 enjoys the same level of support as 10.2.0.3, which is, “Not certified, but assumed to work.” ESRI cannot certify every permutation of hardware/OS/software …., “presumed to work” … how about taking it out for a spin as a business partner of Oracle and seeing if it works. I’m pretty sure Oracle would return your call if someone from ESRI said, hey you know that proposed change in 10.2.0.4 for OGC compatibility, well it hoses our ST_Geometry.
Further, the ESRI web site now says “Oracle 10.2.0.4.0 is not supported if using the Oracle Type (ST_GEOMETRY) and if the 10.2.0.4 install includes the Oracle Spatial Option. “
http://support.esri.com/index.cfm?fa=knowledgebase.systemRequirements.formList&PN=ArcSDE&pvName=9.2&productID=19&PID=19&DN=&count=1&PVID=372&hn=PC-Intel+Windows+2003+Server+Standard%2C+Enterprise+%26+Datacenter&VID=1508
unfortunately no way of knowing when this page was updated.
10
Chris McClain
// Apr 11, 2008 at 6:25 am
see next post
11
Chris M
// Apr 11, 2008 at 6:27 am
Was just at the ESRI support site and this topic has made it way to the front page with a pretty predominate announcement. Look light this might be affecting more then a few people.
12
Simon Greener
// Apr 14, 2008 at 12:08 am
Interesting isn’t it.
One would assume that since both companies ST_GEOMETRY types are compliant with the SQL/MM standard, then one should be able to swap one for each other without any issues just like one should be able to do this for an ArcIMS WFS/WMS and one powered by GeoServer! Isn’t that why we bother with standards?
One gets a sense from the ESRI forum that there is a certain amount of “buck passing” going on. Now I could suggest a solution to all this, but I don’t think it would help anyone with the current problem.
Though, perhaps the ESRI programmers should prefix their ST_GEOMETRY calls with the SDE schema name and release a patch, because I can’t see Oracle, who have had public synonyms for SDO_GEOMETRY for many versions and years, stopping using them for their ST_GEOMETRY type system as well. After all it is their database.
regards
Simon
13
Chris M
// Apr 18, 2008 at 7:29 am
I just got an ESRI broadcast e-mail about this issue. Come to think of it this is probably the first non-marketing support related broadcast e-mail I have seen from ESRI. So I guess this little bug is really screwing some people up!
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