Bulk upload bug in ODAC 11.2 Release 5 (11.2.0.3.20) with Xcopy Deployment

Question

There is a bug in ODP.NET (ODAC 11.2 Release 5 (11.2.0.3.20) with Xcopy Deployment)
When large amount of data is uploaded using OracleBulkCopy the following exception is thrown
System.EntryPointNotFoundException: Unable to find an entry point named 'OpsBulkCopyFreeDataPointers' in DLL 'OraOps11w.dll'.
at Oracle.DataAccess.Client.OpsBC.FreeDataPointers(OPOBulkCopyValCtx* pOPOBulkCopyValCtx)
at Oracle.DataAccess.Client.OracleBulkCopy.PerformBulkCopy()
at Oracle.DataAccess.Client.OracleBulkCopy.WriteDataSourceToServer()
at Oracle.DataAccess.Client.OracleBulkCopy.WriteToServer(DataTable table, DataRowState rowState)
at Oracle.DataAccess.Client.OracleBulkCopy.WriteToServer(DataTable table)
at OracleBulkUploadBug.Program.UploadData(OracleConnection connection)
at OracleBulkUploadBug.Program.Main(String[] args)
Steps to reproduce.+
*1) Create a temp table*
CREATE TABLE "RAM"."BLKUPLOADBUG"
"COLUMN1" VARCHAR2(1000 BYTE),
"COLUMN2" VARCHAR2(1000 BYTE),
"COLUMN3" VARCHAR2(1000 BYTE),
"COLUMN4" VARCHAR2(1000 BYTE),
"COLUMN5" VARCHAR2(1000 BYTE)
SEGMENT CREATION IMMEDIATE PCTFREE 10 PCTUSED 40 INITRANS 1 MAXTRANS 255 NOCOMPRESS LOGGING STORAGE
INITIAL 65536 NEXT 1048576 MINEXTENTS 1 MAXEXTENTS 2147483645 PCTINCREASE 0 FREELISTS 1 FREELIST GROUPS 1 BUFFER_POOL DEFAULT FLASH_CACHE DEFAULT CELL_FLASH_CACHE DEFAULT
TABLESPACE "USERS" ;
*2) Run the following c# code*
using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;
using Oracle.DataAccess.Client;
using System.Data;
namespace OracleBulkUploadBug
class Program
private const string TABLE_NAME = "BlkUploadBug";
private const int ROWS_TO_INSERT = 10000;
static void Main(string[] args)
string ConnString = @"Data source=localhost/xexdb;User ID=ram; password=ram";
try
using (OracleConnection connection = new OracleConnection(ConnString))
connection.Open();
using (OracleCommand cmd = connection.CreateCommand())
cmd.CommandText = string.Format("TRUNCATE TABLE {0}", TABLE_NAME);
cmd.ExecuteNonQuery();
Console.Write("Uploading data...");
UploadData(connection);
Console.WriteLine("done.");
//ShowData(connection);
catch (Exception ex)
Console.WriteLine(ex);
static void UploadData(OracleConnection connection)
DataTable table = new DataTable(TABLE_NAME);
table.Columns.Add("Column1", typeof(string));
table.Columns.Add("Column2", typeof(string));
table.Columns.Add("Column3", typeof(string));
table.Columns.Add("Column4", typeof(string));
table.Columns.Add("Column5", typeof(string));
for (int i = 0; i < ROWS_TO_INSERT; i++)
table.Rows.Add("aaa", "bbb", "ccc", "ddd", "eee");
using (OracleBulkCopy oracleBulkCopy = new OracleBulkCopy(connection))
oracleBulkCopy.DestinationTableName = table.TableName;
oracleBulkCopy.WriteToServer(table);
static void ShowData(OracleConnection connection)
using (OracleCommand cmd = connection.CreateCommand())
cmd.CommandText = string.Format("SELECT * FROM {0}", TABLE_NAME);
using (OracleDataReader reader = cmd.ExecuteReader())
while (reader.Read())
Console.WriteLine("{0}\t{1}\t{2}\t{3}\t{4}",
reader.GetString(0), reader.GetString(1), reader.GetString(2),
reader.GetString(3), reader.GetString(4));
}

Answer 1

Hi Greg,
Thanks for the detailed explanation. Let me start off by describing our current scenario.
We deploy our application with its own set of Oracle driver files (ODP.NET). The driver files were picked from Xcopy deployment package ODAC 11.2 Release 4 (11.2.0.3.0). This works fine for users (50% of our 1000+ user base) who do not have any other installation of Oracle drivers. For the rest of the users who may have another version of ODP.NET (ODAC 11.2 Release 5 (11.2.0.3.20)), installed via Oracle Universal Installer (OUI) we have a problem.
Since Oracle.DataAccess.dll and OraOps11w.dll files have the same version numbers in different packages it is making things very difficult for us. The application picks up Oracle.DataAccess.dll version 11.2.0.3.20 as it is present in the GAC and uses the local OraOps11w.dll 11.2.0.3.0 present in the application folder. This causes the missmatch and the exception gets thrown. Please do note that the exception pops up only when uploading large amounts of data using Oracle bulk upload.
You can use my demo code and try it out for yourself. Install 11.2.0.3.20 using OUI and copy OraOps11w.dll from 11.2.0.3.0 to the local application folder, next to the EXE file. The exception is reproducible always when ROWS_TO_INSERT >= 10000. Reduce the ROWS_TO_INSERT to < 1000 or 100 and it will work flawlessly. I think the error message Unable to find an entry point named 'OpsBulkCopyFreeDataPointers' in DLL 'OraOps11w.dll' is incorrect.
It is true that there are multiple versions of OraOps11w of differing patch levels that all show the same version number.+ Any particular reason to do this? How do you keep track of which fixes are present in which file if the version number never changes?
Regards,
Ram