Siebel Tools >  LOCAL_XE Database Initialization failing with error ORA-24816

LOCAL_XE Database Initialization failing with error ORA-24816

Siebel Remote / Replication / Anywhere - on version: 16.12 [IP2016]

Siebel LOCAL_XE Database Initialization issue

On a Development environment, after the successful setup of Oracle Client, Oracle XE DB and Siebel Tools, the Local DB initialization using Tools is failing.

ERROR
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"Upgrade Wizard did not complete successfully. Please examine the log file for details and restart the Siebel application to attempt the upgrade again."

- the step where it is failing is: "Importing user data"
- and relevant error in log file is:
[Oracle][ODBC][Ora]ORA-24816: Expanded non LONG bind data supplied after actual LONG or LOB column

STEPS
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The issue can be reproduced at will in customer's environment with the following steps:
1. Create Mobile Client on Server;
2. Run Generate New Database template (GenNewDB) job on server;
3. Run also the DbXtract job for the user from step 1 - all above steps done on server are successfully completing;
4. Open Siebel Tools and log on with the same user name from step 1 connecting to LOCAL_XE database;
6. Prompt for downloading the database extracted from server appears;
7. Remote Synchronization part starts and completes fine;
8. After some time, the Upgrade Wizard process shows the error above.

CAUSE
The issue was caused by the following setup changes:

- Instead of using the standard LOCAL_XE ODBC DSN entry that should be created at the time of Siebel Tools or Dedicated/Mobile Web Client, that was replaced post-install;
- So there was a Data Source named "old_XXX_LOCAL_XE" - that is using the correct "Siebel Oracle90" driver definition - that was the original DSN renamed;
- and a new LOCAL_XE DSN entry was added - but this was using Oracle 12c Client ODBC driver instead;

This is not supported as all Siebel applications and versions should be only using the default ODBC Driver installed along with these applications (Data Direct - "Siebel Oracle90").
The use of Oracle proprietary ODBC drivers is not supported for Siebel Tools or any other Client/Server Data Source.

SOLUTION
In order to resolve this issue, the following steps were applied:

1- Remove that newly created LOCAL_XE ODBC entry;
2- Restore that default LOCAL_XE ODBC entry that is using the correct "Siebel Oracle90" driver - that now was "old_XXX_LOCAL_XE" - and rename that back;
3- Check LOCAL_XE connectivity - to ensure that works fine;
Normally, after a Siebel Tools correct installation - there should be no need to alter any ODBC DSNs or Oracle XE configuration files.
4- If able now to connect to LOCAL_XE datasource, please retry again that LOCAL_XE Database initialization - and check its completion status.