oci_connect on PHP 5.2.0-8 not working with Oracle 11g

Question

I was using PHP 5.2.0-8+etch16 / oci_connect to connect to my company's Oracle DB and show information on our website (accessible to external IPs). Ever since we upgraded our DB version (to 11g Release 11.2.0.4.0), I cannot connect to the database anymore.

The page stays loading ( oci_set_call_timeout doesn't work), and nothing is shown. I know the code works and the credentials are OK because I use the same code in another page (visible only to internal IPs) and I didn't have any problems after the upgrade. I'm using the following code:

$conn = oci_connect('user', 'password', 'server', 'charset');
if (!$conn) {
    $e = oci_error();
    trigger_error(htmlentities($e['message'], ENT_QUOTES), E_USER_ERROR);
    echo "Error";
}
else{
    echo "OK";
}

Running phpinfo, the oci section returns:

oci8
OCI8 Support    enabled
Version     1.4.5
Revision    $Revision: 305257 $
Active Persistent Connections   0
Active Connections  0
Oracle Instant Client Version   11.1
Temporary Lob support   enabled
Collections support     enabled

Directive   Local Value Master Value
oci8.connection_class   no value    no value
oci8.default_prefetch   100 100
oci8.events Off Off
oci8.max_persistent -1  -1
oci8.old_oci_close_semantics    Off Off
oci8.persistent_timeout -1  -1
oci8.ping_interval  60  60
oci8.privileged_connect Off Off
oci8.statement_cache_size   20  20

In the page accessible only to internal IPs, the version of oci is 1.4.9 and it is running on a Windows Server 2003 (I know it's old). The external page (the one that doesn't work) has an oci version of 1.4.5 and runs in a Linux jedi-ng 2.6.25. I don't have access to the linux server (only to the folder where the php/html is stored), but I can run some things using shell_exec() .

Is it a version problem (I cannot connect to Oracle 11g using an old version of php/oci anymore) or this is just a connection problem that I can solve by trying another approach?

Feel free to ask questions if you need to.

Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

• Add this to the top of your test script and see if you get a better error message:

   error_reporting(E_ALL|E_STRICT); ini_set('display_errors', 'On');

• The key thing is the version of the Oracle libraries used by PHP OCI8, not the version of the database that you are connecting to. There is a bit of overlap in some environments because the libraries could be used from the database software installation. If you have a remote database then PHP OCI8 may (should) use the libraries from Oracle Instant Client (that link is for the 64-bit packages - use the 32-bit Instant Client if you are running 32-bit PHP).

• Unless you have OCI8 PHP 2.2.2 and are using Oracle client libraries 18c or later, then oci_set_call_timeout() won't be available.

• If I read your question correctly, you have a problem on Linux? In that case make sure that LD_LIBRARY_PATH is set correctly for your version of the webserver, eg you might need to set it in /etc/sysconfig/httpd (I don't know your Linux flavor, so this may differ). Often it is much easier to use ldconfig as shown in the Instant Client installation instructions