[asp.net] ORA-12154 could not resolve the connect identifier specified

I have an Entity Framework web application that works on my local machine, but this error appears when pushed to another environment. There are other non-Entity Framework applications that work, and I'm able to connect with sqlplus.

Using sysinternals Process Monitor shows that tns names file is not being loaded correctly:

Following the documentation I tried to add a section giving the location of the tnsnames file like so:

<configuration>

  <configSections>
    <section name="oracle.manageddataaccess.client"
      type="OracleInternal.Common.ODPMSectionHandler, Oracle.ManagedDataAccess, Version=4.122.1.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=89b483f429c47342"/>
  </configSections>
  
  <oracle.manageddataaccess.client>
    <version number="*">
      <settings>
        <setting name="TNS_ADMIN" value="C:\Oracle\product\12.1.0\client_1\Network\Admin"/>
      </settings>
    </version>
  </oracle.manageddataaccess.client>
  
<configuration>

However, this resulted in an immediate 500 server error.

Further investigation showed that the dll I was packaging with the web application was version 4.122.1.0, while the Oracle client environment installed on the machine was 4.121.2.0. As explained in the Oracle EntityFramework package documentation

Note: If your application is a web application and the above entry was added to a web.config and the same config section handler for "oracle.manageddataaccess.client" also exists in machine.config but the "Version" attribute values are different, an error message of "There is a duplicate 'oracle.manageddataaccess.client' section defined." may be observed at runtime. If so, the config section handler entry in the machine.config for "oracle.manageddataaccess.client" has to be removed from the machine.config for the web application to not encounter this error. But given that there may be other applications on the machine that depended on this entry in the machine.config, this config section handler entry may need to be moved to all of the application's .NET config file on that machine that depend on it.

I attempted to add a separate version section in the .NET machine.config without success (there existed a section for version 4.121.2.0 and I added a section for version 4.122.1.0). After I removed the "oracle.manageddataaccess.client" section from the machine.config, the above addition to the web.config resolved ORA-12154.

Solution #1 summary:

1. Remove "oracle.manageddataaccess.client" from .NET machine.config
2. Give TNS_ADMIN configuration setting in web.config as above

Solution 2

While researching this problem I found that the TNS_ADMIN environmental variable was not set. I created a new environmental variable called TNS_ADMIN and set the value to "C:\Oracle\product\12.1.0\client_1\Network\Admin". I removed the web.config changes, and removed the "oracle.manageddataaccess.client" section from .NET machine.config, but still received ORA-12154. Only after I restarted the machine did this resolve the issue.

Solution #2 summary:

1. Create a new environmental variable called TNS_ADMIN and set the value to "C:\Oracle\product\12.1.0\client_1\Network\Admin"
2. Restart machine

Solution 3

I added an entry for the correct version in the registry and this resolved the issue:

HKLM\Software\Wow6432Node\Oracle\ODP.NET.Managed\4.121.2.0  

The name of the key is TNS_ADMIN and this points to the folder containing the tnsnames file:

C:\Oracle\product\12.1.0\client_1\network 

Not the C:\Oracle\product\12.1.0\client_1\network\admin folder.