FME Flow Database hosted Oracle

Introduction

FME Flow Database can be hosted in PostgreSQL, SQL Server, & Oracle. FME Flow ships the necessary JDBC Drivers for PostgreSQL & SQL Server, but not for Oracle. We provide information in our Admin Documentation on how to change the database provider here. We also mention a note on compatible Oracle Database JDBC Drivers in that documentation, as well as in this article.

Download the appropriate Driver

You must obtain the Oracle Database JDBC driver if using an Oracle database server to host the FME Flow Database.

Driver versions recommended:

FME Flow 2023 and newer (JRE17): odjbc8, ojdbc11, ojdbc17 drivers are expected to be compatible.
FME Server 2022 and older (JRE8): 12.2 (ojdbc8.jar), 18.3 (ojdbc8.jar), 19.3-19.7 (ojdbc8.jar).
FME Server 2022 and older (JRE8): Will not start up with ojdbc10, ojdbc11, and ojdbc17 jar versions.

To download the ojdbc driver, see Oracle's JDBC and UPC Downloads page. You may also find the drivers on Maven.

Testing ojdbc Drivers

This article intends to share some ad-hoc testing that has been performed by Safe Software Support, but is not officially part of our Quality Assurance Testing.

FME Flow 2024.2 and 2025.1

Tested against an Oracle 21c Database.
The following Oracle Database JDBC Drivers PASSED:

ojdbc8.jar, ojdbc10, ojdbc11, ojdbc17

FME Server 2022.2 and Older

Tested with Oracle 19c & Oracle 18c Database:

The following Oracle Database JDBC Drivers PASSED:

12.2 - 19.7 - ojdbc8.jar
More recent versions of the ojdbc8.jar driver are also expected to work.

The following Oracle Database JDBC Drivers FAILED:

ojdbc10.jar, ojdbc11.jar, ojdbc17.jar
The JDK compiled with these drivers is not supported.

FAILED drivers may produce an error in the fmeProcessMonitorCore.log related to the unsupported use of an older JRE:

java.lang.UnsupportedClassVersionError: oracle/jdbc/driver/OracleDriver 
has been compiled by a more recent version of the Java Runtime 
(class file version 54.0), this version of the Java Runtime only 
recognizes class file versions up to 52.0

On the Windows OS, errors are also logged in the Windows Event Viewer's System Event log.

The FME Server Core service terminated unexpectedly.

Summary

For all versions of FME Flow (2023.0 and newer), JRE8 through JRE17 ojdbc drivers are expected to work. It is recommended to use the ojdbc17.jar versions. Unofficial testing has been performed using ojdbc17-23.8.0.25.04.jar driver (and other various versions in between) with success.

For older versions of FME Flow (FME Server 2022.2 and older), it is required to use the ojdbc8.jar versioned JDBC drivers. These use the JRE8 dependencies, while the ojdbc10.jar, ojdbc11.jar, and ojdbc17.jar utilize JRE 10/11/17 dependencies that are not supported.

Consideration should be given to the version of Oracle Database the environment is connecting to; however, this is typically not an issue. The Oracle JDBC FAQ ("What are the Oracle JDBC releases Vs JDK versions") article is a good resource to review when considering a suitable driver version.

Resources

Visit Oracle JDBC FAQ and review the section titled "What are the Oracle JDBC releases Vs JDK versions?"
Oracle Database JDBC Driver Downloads
Changing the Database Provider for the FME Flow Database

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