Oracle Connection Pool failure in COM+

Question

I am having some trouble trying to get a specific database to work with an application that makes use of a COM+ Application. When we point the application at the UAT database everything seems fine, but when we point it to the production database after a few successful calls it ends up failing at the COM+ application recycles. The event viewer provides the following information:
Event Type:     Error
Event Source:     COM+
Event Category:     Unknown
Event ID:     4786
Date:          8/5/2007
Time:          12:54:46 PM
User:          N/A
Computer:     APPL_SERVER
Description:
The system has called a custom component and that component has failed and generated an exception. This indicates a problem with the custom component. Notify the developer of this component that a failure has occurred and provide them with the information below.
Component Prog ID: Oracle Connection Pool - tnsnames_alias
Method Name: IDispenserDriver::CreateResource
Server Application ID: {30A93CB3-25EB-4258-8C88-5AE103B7B86F}
Server Application Instance ID:
{A57C513E-519F-45BD-B46D-DC54B285F534}
Server Application Name: COM+ Application Name
The serious nature of this error has caused the process to terminate.
Exception: C0000005
Address: 0x7C8327F9
Call Stack:
+ 0x7c8327f9
ntdll!RtlFindActivationContextSectionGuid + 0x7d2
ntdll!RtlInitializeSListHead + 0x175
ntdll!RtlFindActivationContextSectionGuid + 0x1b7
msvcrt!malloc + 0x6c
oracommon9!sktsfMalloc + 0x14
orageneric9!kpummapg + 0x58
orageneric9!kghalo + 0xabb
orageneric9!kghalf + 0x102
orageneric9!kopo2cpc + 0x61
orageneric9!kopeini + 0x1d
orageneric9!kopo2cpc + 0xd2
orageneric9!kopopgi + 0x117
OraClient9!koudpnp + 0x712
OraClient9!koudpnp + 0x101
OraClient9!kpuinit0 + 0xb19
OraClient9!kpuinit + 0x38
OraClient9!OCIEnvInit + 0x1c
oramts!kpntsrvr::kpntsrvr(class kpntdbid *) + 0x80
oramts!kpntdbid::allocNewSrvr(struct SIDAND_ATTRIBUTES *) + 0x138
oramts!kpntdbid::GetSrvr(class kpntsvrl * *,unsigned long) + 0x7df
oramts!kpntdisp::getNet8conn(class kpntsvrl * *,unsigned long) + 0x41
oramts!kpntsess::initOCI(void) + 0xec
oramts!kpntsess::sessionBegin(void) + 0x17b
oramts!kpntdisp::CreateResource(unsigned long,unsigned long *,long *) + 0xc4
COMSVCS!DispManGetContext + 0xa3d
COMSVCS!DispManGetContext + 0x1fee
oramts!kpntdisp::allocateConnection(class kpntsess * *,unsigned long,class kpntrtyp *) + 0x3c4
oramts!_kpntsvcgetex + 0x183
oramts!_kpntsvcget + 0x25
oramts!kpntctra::getConnectionAndHandles(class kpntrtyp *,struct OCISvcCtx * *,struct OCITrans * *,struct OCIError * *) + 0x87
oramts!kpntctra::abortBranch(struct xid_t &,class kpntbrnch *,struct BOID *,int,struct BOID *) + 0x15a
oramts!kpntctra::doAbort(struct BOID *,int,struct BOID *) + 0x454
oramts!kpntajob::doJob(void) + 0x27
oramts!kpntjobq::serviceRequest(class kpntjob *) + 0x3e
oramts!workerThread(void *) + 0xd0
msvcrt!_endthreadex + 0xa3
kernel32!GetModuleFileNameA + 0xeb
Not being an expert in Oracle, I have been able to dig up a little bit of information that might be of use ...
a) Our tnsnames.ora indicates that the connections are to be DEDICATED and running Toad bares this out -- dllhost ends up with a single connection.
b) most of the database initial set of parameters seem to be very similar. The only difference I noticed was that the archive log mode and db_cache_advice are ON for production.
c) We have little control over how the connection strings are being created internally in this COM+ application, but however they are created it works for UAT and doesn't for PROD.
d) When we go into our web application and hit a page that makes use of the COM+ component to render, it will work the first time but when I do a simple browser refresh it will usually fail on the 2nd or 3rd time. Almost like it is trying to expand the connection pool size and the oracle server is throwing up.
If I didn't mention earlier the two database instances run on different servers but the application server is exactly the same. We only change the alias we are using for the database (both are defined in tnsnames) and the password used to make its connection.
Does anyone have any clues on this one? I am really spinning my wheels trying to figure out what could cause this type of situation. Anything at all would be very helpful.

Answer 1

It appeared to us that the problem was with the Oracle server and that it might have been failing when we were trying to expand our application connection pool size or basically obtain more connections.
The biggest indicator of this is that we run the same application code against two different databases and one works and one does not work. Having said this, I suppose the problem could be rooted in a data error instead of an oracle server error ...
Is there a specific trace file on the oracle server that would help me point to any error that is truly an oracle server error? Sorry I am very new to Oracle.