When you install Oracle Xe on a windows machine (mainly server OS’s like Windows 2003) you may notice that the database is not always starting after a reboot. This ussualy happenes when the Oracle XE was installed under a different user than the one you are currently logged in as.
It is easy to start the [...]

Sometimes, when you try to shrink a data file you may get the following message:
TITLE: Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio
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Shrink failed for Database ‘Data base name’.  (Microsoft.SqlServer.Smo)
For help, click: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink?ProdName=Microsoft+SQL+Server&ProdVer=9.00.1399.00&EvtSrc=Microsoft.SqlServer.Management.Smo.ExceptionTemplates.FailedOperationExceptionText&EvtID=Shrink+Database&LinkId=20476
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ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:
An exception occurred while executing a Transact-SQL statement or batch. (Microsoft.SqlServer.ConnectionInfo)
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A severe error occurred on the current command.  The results, if any, should be discarded. [...]

sometimes, when running a big transaction, the transaction log can become full or simply grow to a huge size . while you can sometimes free some space using “backup log db-name with truncate_only” and trying to shrink the DB using SQL Management studio.
The process is described in the above link but basically it is: [...]

If you try to import a file and you get the following error:
IMP-00010: not a valid export file, header failed verification
IMP-00000: Import terminated unsuccessfully
The cause according to Oracle error description is “Either the file was not generated by Export or it was corrupted”. The first obvious reason might be that the file is corrupted. However, [...]

The purpose of DB tricks is to serve as an online repository of Data Base  tips I encounter during my work. Sometimes, it can be very frustrating to search (again) for a solution for a problem you already solved.  No matter how important it may look now, chances are you will not remember anything about [...]