TOAD for Oracle 9 or TOAD 10 – 64-bit Windows – ORA-12154: could not resolve the connect identifier specified or ORA-6413: connection not open

AshokTechnical Tips86 Comments

I recently downloaded the new 10.x version of TOAD and could not connect to my databases. Still running TOAD 9.x, no problem. This really threw me off for a minute, so I thought I would share the resolution.

You are likely running a 64-bit Windows OS and have installed TOAD into C:\Program Files (x86)\....

I simply copied over my entire Quest Software directory from C:\Program Files (x86)\... to C:\Program Files\..., and restarted the TOAD.exe. Everything is working great, without having to reinstall anything.

PS: Not sure who to blame here. Vendors (like Oracle and TOAD) should know Microsoft is capable of doing strange things with important directory names (using spaces and, in this case, “strange” characters like parentheses)…and of course, Microsoft should simply stop perpetuating the use of these characters in important directories.

UPDATE on 1/12/11: I had to install TOAD again today and noticed a message in the installer about directories with parentheses — glad to see Quest now added a note about it (see screenshot below).

Toad Install Alert
Funny thing is, even though I installed to C:\Program Files\, there were still files created in C:\Program Files (x86)\ that I had to manually copy and paste over. This time, by the way, I cut and paste which also worked — so no files are actually needed in the C:\Program Files (x86)\ folders.

86 Comments on “TOAD for Oracle 9 or TOAD 10 – 64-bit Windows – ORA-12154: could not resolve the connect identifier specified or ORA-6413: connection not open”

  1. It worked for me too.
    I simply copied over my entire Quest Software directory from C:\Program Files (x86)\… to C:\Program Files\…, and restarted the TOAD.exe. Everything is working great, without having to reinstall anything.

    Thanks guys..

  2. My colleague struggled for a couple of days trying to sort out this issue and finally we came across your post and bingo, all set!!! Thanks a lot!

  3. I’m running Win 7 (64) bit and Toad 9 all was ok but after installinte Toad 11 I got the ORA-12154 message. Toad 9 is still ok but not Toad 11.

    I just copied the “Program Files (x86)Quest Software” installation to a Program FilesQuest Software directory and restarted Toad from that without any probelm.

    Now both version of Toad works perfectly.

    Thanks.

  4. Great job!!! Thanks a lot. I had similar problem with Visual Studio 2008 / Crystal Reports and it works fine!

  5. Thanks for the information. I spent a couple of hours figuring out but all in vain. Your post really helped me.

  6. Hi All,

    Been a while since I used TOAD since I switched to SQL Developer (was just too convenient to find and download the latest version for free, though I still liked how solid TOAD was once it did finally install each time!), but I am very glad this is still helping people. I even translated Egor’s comment — thanks to all for leaving a note saying this helped. It makes me feel like the time I spent making the post years ago had a good ROI…few enterprise software systems have this much longevity and utility!

    – Ashok Aggarwal

Leave a Reply to Ashish Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *