Oracle TNS: net service name is incorrecly specified

Question

I'm trying to access an Oracle database on an old server we inherited for a client.

I'm confident I have the Oracle database and listener started and working, but when trying to access sqlplus or the exp commands, I'm getting the following error:

ORA-12162: TNS:net service name is incorrectly specified

I have edited the tnsnames.ora file to change the host to 127.0.0.1 rather than an external URL and I am able to successfully tnsping my connection, but am not getting much further.

Answer 1

Try setting the Oracle SID

//for windows server.

set ORACLE_SID=database name

//for linux server

export ORACLE_SID=database name

Ideally, database name here should be SID(Site Id). These evn variable should go in file ".profile" of user "oracle"