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vnchoudhary
Frequent Visitor

PowerBI desktop 64Bit oracle connection error Object reference not set to an instance of an object

I am new to PowerBI desktop, I have installed PowerBI 64 bit. I have already Oracle client and Visual studio installed on my machine. As recomended on Link I have downloaded and configured  64-bit ODAC 12c Release 4 (12.1.0.2.4) Xcopy for Windows x64. After doing all these thing I am not able to establish connection between PowerBI desktop and Oracle DB getting error message once I fill the db connection details is "Object reference not set to an instance of an object" . However I am able to establish connection with SQL server. 

 

Here are some details that may Help you in providing solution of this:

- I have Visual studio 2010

- Then I installed oracle client in location ""C:\Program Files (x86)\sqldeveloper"

- Then I have installed the Power BI desktop 64 Bit

- Then I have downloaded the 64-bit ODAC

- Extract ODAC121024Xcopy_x64 and run install batch file from path "C:\Program Files (x86)\Oracle_instantclient_12_1"

- Open PowerBi desktop, select getdata and select Oracle DB. specified DB connection details and getting "Object reference not set to an instance of an object"

 

 

Could you please help me out in this issue

2 ACCEPTED SOLUTIONS

Hi Viveka,

 

I'm definitely not an expert on Oracle databases or connecting to them.  I can only tell you what worked for me.  One thing I notice is that you installed the "Xcopy" files and I'm wondering if for some reason you didn't get all the files you need.

 

Also, there are several posts under the subject "Oracle" that have useful info that may help you.  If you do decide to reinstall the Oracle components, you need to uninstall what you've already done first.

 

Here's what I recently did on one of our machines that worked for me. 

  1. I downloaded the 64-bit ODAC121024_x64.zip file rather than the "Xcopy" file. 
  2. Put the zip file into a temporary directory and unzip it there.  Make sure that there are no spaces in the directory name or path to it.
  3. When you've unzipped it, you should see the "setup" application.  Run that and eventually you'll see the "configuration installer".  You should be able to stay with the defaults for most steps.
  4. When you get to the "DB Connection Configuration" step, it's important that you fill in the requested information.  Here are some tips.

    Connection Alias

    Enter what you want to name this database. When you get data in Power BI, you’ll use this as the “Server Name”.

    Port Number

    (default 1521) only change if necessary for your database

    Database Host Name

    This is how the database is found in your network. May be an IP address for the database server.

    Database Service Name

    (default to ORCL) This may be different for your database

     


    This is important since the installer sets up the tnsnames.ora file that the database client uses to connect with the Oracle database.
  5. After you made the entries, finish the installation process and reboot your machine.

You should now be able to get to your Oracle database with Power BI when you use "Get Data" and select the "Oracle" database option.

View solution in original post

Hi Bfrancis,

 

Thanks a lot for your valuable solution and it works for me. I have uninstalled all oracle components and then install the ODAC121024_x64.zip and it works for me like a charm. 

 

Earlirt I have installed 64-bit ODAC 12c Release 4 (12.1.0.2.4) Xcopy for Windows x64 as recommended by Power BI, Link

 

Regards,

Viveka

View solution in original post

27 REPLIES 27
meet2aftab
Helper I
Helper I

Hi Bfrancis,

I followed your suggestion and it worked like a charm

 

Alleluya!! It´s solve my problem.

 

Thanks a lot!!

AngelQ
Frequent Visitor

Its get solve uninstalling my Power Bi version(i get it from Microsoft Store) and installing again from the web:

https://www.microsoft.com/es-ES/download/details.aspx?id=58494

Same that AngelQ for Me :

Doesnt work with Power BI 64 from microsoft Store, works well with Power BI 64 downloaded from https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=58494 

salborno
New Member

hi guys,

 

I had this exact error just now when trying to build relationship between tables. Follwoing some trial and error, I discovered that the drag and drop works by dragging the "many" column to the "one" column and not vice versa, which is what I was doing wrong initially! Odd! but here you go...

 

hope this helps someone else 🙂

bfrancis
Advocate I
Advocate I

Try rebooting your machine after the install and see if the problem goes away.  That darn 1990's Oracle software gets in the way sometimes . . .

I have restarted my machine, and geting same issue. Please suggest.

Hi Viveka,

 

I'm definitely not an expert on Oracle databases or connecting to them.  I can only tell you what worked for me.  One thing I notice is that you installed the "Xcopy" files and I'm wondering if for some reason you didn't get all the files you need.

 

Also, there are several posts under the subject "Oracle" that have useful info that may help you.  If you do decide to reinstall the Oracle components, you need to uninstall what you've already done first.

 

Here's what I recently did on one of our machines that worked for me. 

  1. I downloaded the 64-bit ODAC121024_x64.zip file rather than the "Xcopy" file. 
  2. Put the zip file into a temporary directory and unzip it there.  Make sure that there are no spaces in the directory name or path to it.
  3. When you've unzipped it, you should see the "setup" application.  Run that and eventually you'll see the "configuration installer".  You should be able to stay with the defaults for most steps.
  4. When you get to the "DB Connection Configuration" step, it's important that you fill in the requested information.  Here are some tips.

    Connection Alias

    Enter what you want to name this database. When you get data in Power BI, you’ll use this as the “Server Name”.

    Port Number

    (default 1521) only change if necessary for your database

    Database Host Name

    This is how the database is found in your network. May be an IP address for the database server.

    Database Service Name

    (default to ORCL) This may be different for your database

     


    This is important since the installer sets up the tnsnames.ora file that the database client uses to connect with the Oracle database.
  5. After you made the entries, finish the installation process and reboot your machine.

You should now be able to get to your Oracle database with Power BI when you use "Get Data" and select the "Oracle" database option.

Hi,

 

Just sharing for your reference.

If I use Power BI desktop get from app store, I cannot connect to Oracle database with error like you. Howerver, if I use Power BI desktop downloaded from web, I can connect normally with no error.

 

Kind regards,

Tokychu

This was my problem too.

Actually it was working fine, connecting to an Oracle DB (with ODAC already installed).  A taskbar message appeared indicating a new version was available to download, i clicked on this which took me to the MS Store page, downloaded and installed this version (not remembering i downloaded it originally from the direct URL).  It then stopped being able to connect to the Oracle DB with the updated version.

I uninstalled the software, but noticed an entry still existed in the Add or Remove Programs options.  I uninstalled it again, this time it disappeared (two versions of the same application installed at the same time?????).  I then downloaded from direct URL again, sure enough the connect worked again 1st go!

Sharing this so people don't end up spending hours trouble shooting like i was.

Cheers.

thanks this solution solved by issue, basically re-installing the oracle ODAC components solved the issue. Dont use the Xcopy version

Anonymous
Not applicable

The XCopy version works just fine, but you then have to manually

 

1) Add the ODAC root and \bin folder to your PATH environment variable.

2) Put a TNSNAMES.ora file in the Instant client's network\admin folder *OR* set up the TNSADMIN environment variable to point to your TNSNAMES.ora directory.

 

Hope this helps anyone else who doesn't need GBs of Oracle program bloat on their machine just to connect to a database!

I was really hoping to get away with the XCOPY version as well, as all I need to do is set it up for use by the gateway and don't want to download and install GB's but so far unsuccessful. I get all kinds of "regedit" errors when I run the "install.bat" as admin in a command prompt. Forcing you to sign up for an account and then have this poorly documented process for installing drivers - clearly Oracle does not want people to use their software and I'll happily be migrating users. Almost as bad as SAP drivers (except them I could get to work in the end). Even PostgreSQL install was quick and easy.

 

How do you do nr2 you mention? I can't seem to find any files with extension .ora in the folder I extracted the source

 

"2) Put a TNSNAMES.ora file in the Instant client's network\admin folder *OR* set up the TNSADMIN environment variable to point to your TNSNAMES.ora directory.

Just been fighting with the above, on a current Windows 10 laptop, with the full 64-bit ODAC 12c (12.1.0.2.4) installed.

 

The fix for me was to install the PowerBI desktop version, and not the version from the Windows Store.

 

No more error message. Can finally get to grips with my data 🙂

OMG!!!!! THANK YOU. Now that I'm assuming I understand the /usr style of Store Apps, perhaps it's that it can't see an environment variable (System -vs- User), or it needs to be run with elevated priviledges, or TNSNAMES.ora needs to be sym-linked somewhere. ... I'll rollback to the broken Windows Store version and play.

@dbrown_cda, this worked for me! Thanks for posting it kkk

No more error message.

Mart
Frequent Visitor

worked for me!

 

Thanks

Hi Bfrancis,

 

Thanks a lot for your valuable solution and it works for me. I have uninstalled all oracle components and then install the ODAC121024_x64.zip and it works for me like a charm. 

 

Earlirt I have installed 64-bit ODAC 12c Release 4 (12.1.0.2.4) Xcopy for Windows x64 as recommended by Power BI, Link

 

Regards,

Viveka

Hi Bfrancis,

 

I have installed 64-bit ODAC 12c Release 4 (12.1.0.2.4) Xcopy for Windows x64 as recommended by Power BI, Link

 

I have already reinstall the 64-bit ODAC 12c Release 4 (12.1.0.2.4) Xcopy two times, Now I will try your solution to install 64-bit ODAC121024_x64.zip but before that I am going to uninstall previously installed ODAC applications and install ODAC121024_x64.zip

 

Will let you know on this.

 

Regards,

Viveka

 

 

Hi Viveka, have you seen the email we sent to you? We had some additional instructions to get the trace files, because the traces you sent to us didn't have the error you've experienced.

 

Thanks

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