How to trace someone else's session

Question

Hello,
How do I trace a user's session. A user is complaining of an error and I want to trace the user's session. Thank you.

Answer 1

You will need to get the sid and the serial# from v$session. Once you have them, issue one of the following:
You can use dbms_support to enable and disable the trace. If it is not installed, you will need run $ORACLE_HOME/rdbms/admin/dbmssupp.sql
To enable a level 1 trace, like setting sql_trace=true
exec dbms_support.start_trace_in_session(<sid>,<serial#>);
To enable trace with binds
exec dbms_support.start_trace_in_session(<sid>,<serial#>,binds=true);
Toe enable trace with binds and waits
exec dbms_support.start_trace_in_session(<sid>,<serial#>,waits=true,binds=true);
To stop tracing
exec dbms_support.stop_trace_in_session(<sid>,<serial#>);
It is better to end the session instead of disabling the trace. Some cursor stat lines may not be written to the trace when disabling trace that would have been written if the session terminated.