Question about using EM on machine with 2 active instances

Question

Good morning,
As a self training exercise I've created 2 instances on one machine. The machine is both, server and client. I'm running Windows XP SP2, Oracle 11gR2 (as seen in my user handle) and using IE7 for EM.
The URL for the first instance is:
https://Oracle2Day1.john.local:1158/emThe URL for the second instance is:
https://Oracle2Day1.john.local:5500/emIf I log into one and only one instance then everything works just fine.
When I log into the first instance, then log into the second instance and, switch back to the tab of the first instance, I find myself back at the "User name/Password/Connect As" page, I don't even get the page saying that I've been logged out of the first instance.
Additionally, if at that point, I switch back to the tab of the second instance, I find myself at the "User name/Password/Connect As" page for that instance too.
Basically, whenever I log into both instances and switch from one instance tab to the other, it brings me back to the log in page for both instances.
If I log into a single instance and do not attempt to log into the second instance then everything works fine.
Any ideas as to why I cannot be logged into both instances at the same time ? (I can be logged in both instances simultaneously using SQL*Plus without any problems) Is there something I can do to correct this behavior or is this "normal" ?
Thank you for your help,
John.

Answer 1

Hello Amardeep,
>
If he opens the 2 EM consoles in 2 separate browsers, shouldn't it work ?
>
I tried that. I even tried different browsers and had all kinds of problems. Nothing worked but, in order to tell you about the problems I would run into when doing that, I tried it again using IE7 and, this time, I made sure I had a separate process for each copy of IE7 (not just a separate thread)....
LOW and BEHOLD... it worked!!!
I can do whatever I want in both instances without any problems... smooth as silk.
I spent a day and half trying to figure out what the problem was. The strange thing was that when I had just finished installing the second instance, everything worked fine. I could be in both instances at the same time. After I rebooted the machine, it would no longer work... so I started looking everywhere for the reason why it broke... I'm guessing that when I rebooted my machine, (which is not particularly fast and, less so when there are two instances running), I tried too soon (it takes my machine over 30 minutes just to initialize both instances) and that contributed to all of the problems I experienced. I probably did not try two separate browser processes before each instance had time to fully initialize.
Problem solved.
Solution:
*1*. Make sure the instance is fully initialized (wait until CPU drops to 1 to 4% and stays there for a few minutes)
*2*. Access each instance using a different browser process (make sure the browser window isn't simply another thread of a previously started browser instance)
Amardeep, thank you :)
John.