Connection request timed out - problem

Question

Hi, our errorlog confirms there are regular "Connection request timed out" errors in our web-application (asp.net with odp 9.2.0.4).
Now we did a standard ODP installation, so i don't know how all the Pooling parameters are set up initially. But i found metalink note 261377.1 which states that the max number of connections also depends on the setting of maxconnections in the machine.config on the server. right now this setting is (windows server 2003):
<connectionManagement>
<add address="*" maxconnection="2"/>
</connectionManagement>
Apart from having to install patch version 9.2.0.7, could this be part of the problem? Or could this also be caused by wrong programming practice?
Furthermore: in metalink note 240997.1 i found an example of setting several pooling parameters at connect-time. Is this the only way to do it, or is there something like an odp.config where you can specify these parameters?
Regards, Paul.

Answer 1

Hi Paul,
1) "how the pooling parameters are set up initially": refer to the odp.net documentation, it tells you what all the default parameters are. The key parameter in this case would likely be "max pool size" which defaults to 100.
2) "maxconnections in machine.config": I looked at that note which doesnt contain very much detail, but couldnt force a problem. maxconnection="2" is apparently the default, it's what mine is set to, and I can open 100 connections without problem. It may be that theres another setting that can affect this (I doubt the guy who wrote the note just made the info up) but I dont know what that is top of my head.
3) the pooling parameters can only be set in the connect string itself. You could certainly store the settings in a System.Configuration.ConfigurationSettings.AppSettings file however.
4) "Connection request timed out" is typically not an Oracle software problem, but more frequently an issue with code not cleaning up after itself properly. To confirm whether you've hit "max pool size", check v$session; how many actual connections does that app have? Make sure you're closing and disposing the connection, and additionally the command, reader, etc, under all circumstances (ie, a finally block).
Hope that helps,
Greg