I am trying to open tables from wizard in forms 6i and database 19c , I can connect by using user name and password in forms 6i but when I select the table from wizard it shows this error ,

actually I need to upgrade my old system and build new system in oracle APEX but during this time I need to continue using old system .

How to fix this error when select the table it show this error

ora-03115 unsupported network datatype or representation

CodePudding user response：

Basically, it means that combination of client software (Forms 6i) is too old to successfully work with a new database (19c).

Forms 6i was released along with database version 8, back in 1997. Oracle database 19c dates from 2019 which means that there's over two decades difference between them. A LOT has changed during that time. Michael Ferrante from Oracle says that

Forms/Reports 6 was never certified for use with ANY database newer than Oracle 8.1.6.

and can't stress enough how important it is to upgrade.

OK, you're switching to Apex, but you can't expect that really old Forms application to work correctly with a new database. Perhaps you should have kept your old database and use it with Forms application, while you'd develop an Apex application using new database version. Once you're done, you'd migrate data from old database to new.

Meanwhile: what is SYS_USERS table description? Does it, by any chance, contain a TIMESTAMP column? If so, that might be cause of your problem. If you don't really care about fractional seconds, see if you can modify that column's datatype to DATE. Don't alter the original table yet - first create its "duplicate", just switch timestamp to date datatype and try to access such a table from Forms. If it works, consider altering sys_users.

CodePudding user response：

There are numerous reasons why old Forms/Reports versions cannot use DB versions newer than 8.1. The most significant one is that beginning in DB 9 (I believe), the ROWID format was changed/lengthened. Before Forms internally uses ROWID and expected this ROWID to be of an expected format, the change to it made newer DBs incompatible with Forms. Again, this is just one of several changes impacting the use of old Forms versions.

Move to Apex? Seems a better and generally easier approach would be to simply upgrade to a supported Forms version. Once upgraded, begin to take advantage of the many new features introduced since 6.0.8. In the planned coming versions of Forms, there are many new features expected.

Because your Forms application code (within the modules) mostly cannot be repurposed in Apex (or any other technology), what seems to work best for many other users is to invest some effort into moving Forms to a current version and introduce new features where appropriate. As new business requirements arise, carefully consider which technology is best suited for that requirements. As needed integrate all the technologies together (e.g. Forms and Apex can be integrated/share information).

You cannot build a house with a single tool. It often takes many tools to achieve all the requirements appropriately.