Oracle Net Configuration Assistant: Cannot configure listener (TNS-04605)

Question

Using the Oracle Net Configuration Assistant (netca) on Windows Server 2008 to configure an 11gR2 listener, the process to add a listener appears to complete normally. However, no service is created and no listener.ora file is created.
The shortcut provided in the Start menu runs netca without any console, so errors are hidden. The first step to finding out what's going on is to open a command console and run netca.bat from the command line. This time, I could see an error when completing the listener configuration:
ListenerException: Could not save listener: TNS-04414: File error
caused by: TNS-04605: Invalid syntax error: Unexpected char or LITERAL "(" before or at ( PROGRAM =
This implies that the value entered into the listener.ora file just before the PROGRAM = entry is invalid, making the subsequent line unexpected.
Looking at a listener.ora file on another server, the entry generated before PROGRAM = is ORACLE_HOME =.
My ORACLE_HOME environment variable must be invalid.
On examination, the variable was set with a backslash at the end eg. F:\Oracle\Product\11.2.0\dbhome_1\
By removing the trailing backslash and re-running netca, the configuration tool was able to set up my listener as expected.
I hope that making a record of this will help somebody else save time solving this problem in future.
Chrispy

Answer 1

It certainly helped me! Thank you.