ArcMap Loads Slowly when Oracle DB Unavailable

[andysp]

We are attempting to retire an Oracle/SDE instance.

Our existing MXDs have had most of their data sources pointed to a new server and database with a new Oracle service name. However, some MXDs still have data sources pointing to the old server. When the old database instance is shut down, ArcMap loads much more slowly on a client machine (a document previously opening in 1 min +/- now takes 15 minutes or more to open).

I have tried commenting out the old server's entry in the client TNSNAMES.ORA file, to no avail.

Has anyone seen similar behavior? Is there any way to get ArcMap to give up in a reasonable amount of time and just display a broken layer symbol?

[MichaelVolz]

I had the same issue years ago and I had put in an idea for ESRI to have arcmap give up sooner when trying to find SDE data, but nothing ever came of this from ESRI..

I believe I also put in some alias for the old tnsname to look for the updated server name which solved this problem.

[andysp]

See also: SWhen you lose data connection, map hangs...‌

[Asrujit_SenGupta]

The below suggestion worked for me a couple of times, so you can try this. However, this will have to be done on all machines, where ArcGIS Desktop is installed and will be opening the old MXDs.

Go to--> C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc --> Open the Hosts file using Notepad\Notepad++ --> make the below changes:

Original content:

# 127.0.0.1       localhost

Change it to:

 127.0.0.1       Old_Database_Server_Name

Sometimes the Old_IP_Address worked instead of the Old_Database_Server_Name.

[MichaelVolz]

Does this same ArcMap loading also occur for SQL Server databases that have been moved/retired?

If not, is there something in the design of ArcMap connecting to a SQL Server database that prevents this hanging from occurring?

[Asrujit_SenGupta]

I have seen this with SQL Server databases as well, as far as I recall.

Sometimes, just creating a dummy VM with the same Server Name\IP (without the db installed), also speeds up the process.

[andysp · Accepted solution]

The solution in our environment has been to force DNS lookups to the old server to return 0.0.0.0.

In C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\HOSTS on the client machine:

0.0.0.0   old_server_dns_name‍‍‍‍

The issue appears to have been that in our environment, the old server remained online but did not have the expected SDE data sources available - or the server was entirely offline but still listed in DNS. I had tried suggestions such the one posted by Asrujit SenGupta above (forcing the old server to 127.0.0.1) and variations on the thoughts posted by Michael Volz (trying to force the connections to the new server) but they did not hold in all cases.

2/28/2018: ETA that this change should be made on the client machine.