Question

I’m working on a django project, and when trying to connect to an Oracle database I get this message:

DataBaseError: ORA-12505: TNS:listener does not currently know of SID given in
connect descriptor

All the answers online have said “You need to make sure you have the correct SID”, so I asked the person at my work who manages all the databases and he said “We don’t have SID’s for these guys. We use service names instead.”

I can access the db via the command line, but trying to get django to do this is driving me crazy. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks

EDIT: Here is my settings.py file. It’s not too interesting… this is a fresh project.

DEBUG = True
TEMPLATE_DEBUG = DEBUG

ADMINS = ( ,
)

MANAGERS = ADMINS

DATABASES = {
    'default': {
        'ENGINE': 'django.db.backends.oracle',
        'NAME': '',
        'USER': 'a_user',                     
        'PASSWORD': 'a_password',                 
        'HOST': 'a_host',
        'PORT': '1521',
    }
}


TIME_ZONE = 'Europe/London'

LANGUAGE_CODE = 'en-us'

SITE_ID = 1

USE_I18N = True

USE_L10N = True

USE_TZ = True

MEDIA_ROOT = ''

MEDIA_URL = ''

STATIC_ROOT = ''

STATIC_URL = '/static/'

STATICFILES_DIRS = (

)


STATICFILES_FINDERS = (
    'django.contrib.staticfiles.finders.FileSystemFinder',
    'django.contrib.staticfiles.finders.AppDirectoriesFinder',
#    'django.contrib.staticfiles.finders.DefaultStorageFinder',
)


TEMPLATE_LOADERS = (
    'django.template.loaders.filesystem.Loader',
    'django.template.loaders.app_directories.Loader',
#     'django.template.loaders.eggs.Loader',
)

MIDDLEWARE_CLASSES = (
    'django.middleware.common.CommonMiddleware',
    'django.contrib.sessions.middleware.SessionMiddleware',
    'django.middleware.csrf.CsrfViewMiddleware',
    'django.contrib.auth.middleware.AuthenticationMiddleware',
    'django.contrib.messages.middleware.MessageMiddleware',
    # Uncomment the next line for simple clickjacking protection:
    # 'django.middleware.clickjacking.XFrameOptionsMiddleware',
)

ROOT_URLCONF = 'sandbox.urls'

WSGI_APPLICATION = 'sandbox.wsgi.application'

TEMPLATE_DIRS = (

)

INSTALLED_APPS = (
    'django.contrib.auth',
    'django.contrib.contenttypes',
    'django.contrib.sessions',
    'django.contrib.sites',
    'django.contrib.messages',
    'django.contrib.staticfiles',
    # Uncomment the next line to enable the admin:
    # 'django.contrib.admin',
    # Uncomment the next line to enable admin documentation:
    # 'django.contrib.admindocs',
)

LOGGING = {
    'version': 1,
    'disable_existing_loggers': False,
    'filters': {
        'require_debug_false': {
            '()': 'django.utils.log.RequireDebugFalse'
        }
    },
    'handlers': {
        'mail_admins': {
            'level': 'ERROR',
            'filters': ['require_debug_false'],
            'class': 'django.utils.log.AdminEmailHandler'
        }
    },
    'loggers': {
        'django.request': {
            'handlers': ['mail_admins'],
            'level': 'ERROR',
            'propagate': True,
        },
    }
}

Answer 1

If you have DBA access, you can get the SID with:

select instance from V$THREAD;

Typically, it’s the same name used in your TNSNAMES.ORA file (MYDB in the below case).

 MYDB =
   (DESCRIPTION =
     (ADDRESS_LIST =
       (ADDRESS = (PROTOCOL = TCP)(HOST = dbserver.mynetwork)(PORT = 1521))
     )
     (CONNECT_DATA =
       (SERVICE_NAME = MYDB.mynetwork)
     )
   )

So the settings would be:

 DATABASES = {
     'default': {
         'ENGINE': 'django.db.backends.oracle',
         'NAME': 'MYDB',
         'USER': 'a_user',                     
         'PASSWORD': 'a_password',                 
         'HOST': 'dbserver.mynetwork',
         'PORT': '1521',
     }
 }