In this article I’ll show how to deal with this Oracle error ORA-00020: maximum number of processes (%s) exceeded in few simple steps.
ORA-00020
This error can be shown for many reasons, but one is known – your oracle server reached the maximum connections defined in ORACLE_HOME_DIR/DBS/init.ora
What to do?
Make this simple steps, and you will have access to sqlplus when you got the ORA-00020: maximum number of processes (%s) exceeded.
1. lsnrctl start – with this commant, you stop any future connection to the DB.
2. emctl stop dbconsole – stop the Oracle Enterprise Console, to free some connections.
3. Edit the file ORACLE_HOME_DIR/DBS/init.ora – you have to change processes to something that meet your requirement.
4. emctl start dbconsole – start the Oracle Enterprise Console.
5. lsnrctl start – start the Oracle listener.
Enjoy your „brand“ new Oracle 😀