Hosting the FME Flow System Database on Oracle

Purpose

To share some extra troubleshooting tips for configuring FME Flow (formerly FME Server) to use the System Database on an Oracle Database.

In 2023, FME Server underwent a name change and is now known as FME Flow. Since this article discusses features present in previous versions of FME, it will refer to both names interchangeably, using the appropriate product name based on the year the feature was introduced. For more information on the rebranding, see our website.

Problem

You have followed the instructions found here to change the database provider to Oracle but FME Flow is still not working correctly. Symptoms might be that the Web UI is not populating correctly or the FME Flow service processes are continuing to restart (see Task Manager).  The fmeserver.log and fmeProcessMonitorCore.log are indicating error messages related to the database.

Resolution

In FME Flow (2022 and older) there are two places the JDBC Driver (ojdbc.jar) file needs to be placed:

1. C:\Program Files\FMEFlow\Utilities\tomcat\lib\
2. C:\Program Files\FMEFlow\Utilities\jdbc\

Copy the files here and restart the FME Flow Core & the FME Flow Web Application services.

Please ensure the DB_JDBC_URL is correct in the fmeDatabaseConfig.txt file.

[In older versions of FME Server please consider that you may need to look for the DB_JDBC_URL in  fmeFlowWebApplicationConfig.txt and fmeCommonConfig.txt.]

Comment

In older versions of FME Server, you may find an old driver file called ojdbc7-12.1.0.2.jar in C:\Program Files\FMEServer\Utilities\tomcat\lib\. If you are updating to a newer ojdbc jar file please ensure you remove this older driver file, replacing it with the same file you placed in C:\Program Files\FMEServer\Utilities\jdbc.  

Since FME Flow 2023 and newer, the ojdbc jar file should only need to be placed in the C:\Program Files\FMEFlow\Utilities\jdbc.  

Recommendation

It is advised to use the ojdbc8 driver file from any version (ex 18c, 19c, or 21c) found on the Oracle JDBC Driver download page.  Customers have had success with ojdbc7 in FME Flow 2023 using an Oracle 12c Database but we are recommending the newer ojdbc8 driver file.

Caution: Testing has confirmed that the ojdbc10.jar drivers do not work with FME Server (tested in 2020 & 2021). In FME Flow 2023 we have upgraded to a newer Java 17 but testing has not been performed to determine if the ojdbc10.jar drivers will work with FME Flow 2023.
Please see this article for more information on the testing that has been performed to date (link).

Note for FME Flow 2021.0+: We have made changes and there is now a single configuration file called fmeDatabaseConfig.txt that holds the DB_JDBC_URL parameters for the Oracle database host.