How to Fix This Primavera P6 Professional Erroe: Unable to connect to the database

• When using a standalone copy of Primavera P6 Professional, the typical installation options loaded a copy of Oracle’s free Oracle Express (XE) database on your system. Periodically you may go to login to Primavera P6 and get this message. This happens because the Oracle XE database service has failed and thus P6 cannot connect to it. The cause of XE failures is varied, but the PC coming out of hibernation is one common item that we encountered.

No wonder the thousands of requests at PP to solve the issue, it seems like Oracle database design is poor compared to any other on the market. I used many different software, and even used before old Btrieve database engine within P3 and SureTrak and never had such issues.

Finally at least we know one of the possible sources of the madness! One of the reasons is inherent in Oracle Database service itself.

I feel very sorry for P6 users that no matter what it seems it will forever be a recurrent issue. If they solve it 1,000 times eventually they will have to solve it another time, and thereafter again and again. 

Hi Rafael,

I encountered the same issue yesterday but unfortunately the possible solutions didn't work for me.

As suggested, I tried to reboot my laptop hoping that it would resolve the "cannot connect to the database" issue.

I have also tried clicking All Progress>Oracle Database 10G Express Edition>Start Database but I always got the same  "System Error 5. Access is Denied." message.

Worse is, during my 3rd attempt to login, I clicked Yes when asked if I want to configure my database connection. I did this step before I found out that I should not click the Yes button as it will whack my settings.

Is there any other solution you can think of? Please help.

Regards,

Joseph

Problem is not limited to Oracle database. For whatever reason, I now have to start my SQL 2012 server most everytime. Not a problem, once you know what's going on, but it would be better if I didn't have to take this step. Same symptoms as with Oracle, just a different methodology. Go to Task Manager, Services, MSSQLEXPRESS, and start the service.

Dennis,

It has been a while since I used MSSQL Database, but the services should be set to start automatically.  If the MSSQLEXPRESS service is set to manual, you should change it to automatic.

If it is already automatic, then there should be an event listed which hints at why it failed.  

From what could be a long (lost?) memory, it may depend on another service starting before it which hasn't started yet so the automatic start fails.  The other service then starts after it. That would explain why MSSQLEXPRESS starts when you try manually, as the other service has now started.  I believe there is a way of setting dependencies on Services so they start in the right order.

Joseph,

You may be suffering from a permissions issue.  You need elevated permissions to start and stop the Oracle database which are (usually) granted through the ORA_DBA group.  This isn't a problem if you have Administrator righst, but it will be a problem when you don't.

Buy a 5 minute solution to Primavera 6 Databse Error