ORA-12638: Credential retrieval failed

I encountered this error this morning and found the following info helpful (original post found here: http://www.easywebtech.com/oracle_ORA-12638.html):

ORA-12****638: Credential retrieval failed

If you get this error first you need to check the SQLNET.ORA file. This file is located in [Oracle_Home]/NETWORK/ADMIN/SQLNET.ORA

if you see SQLNET.AUTHENTICATION_SERVICES= (NTS)

this needs to change to SQLNET.AUTHENTICATION_SERVICES= (NONE)

after that try to login to the database

do you know when does SQLNET.AUTHENTICATION_SERVICES change ?

Thank you!

Hi

when you set

SQLNET.AUTHENTICATION_SERVICES= (NTS)

then you can :

.

.

.

Creating a role called ORA_DBA, with your user in that group,

you should be able to log in to oracle without supplying a password.

(connect / as sysdba)

.

.

.

resource of this configuration description:

dba-oracle.com/bk_sqlnet_authentication_services.htm

this type of connection is very easy , fast and Useful for DBA’s

This could fail for a couple of reasons:

  • The Oracle server is not configured to support Windows authentication
  • The credentials you use to login to your local machine are not sufficient to allow you to login to the server.

In my case, it was the later. Despite the fact that I had told the client to use a different user name and password, it was still attempting to login using my domain credentials first. This failed because I was logged on to my local machine using my normal domain credentials rather than my administrator account.

Replacing the line:

SQLNET.AUTHENTICATION_SERVICES= (NTS)

with

SQLNET.AUTHENTICATION_SERVICES= (NONE)

Hope this will fix ORA-12638: Credential retrieval failed