ORA-12516: TNS:listener could not find available handler with matching protocol stack

In this Document
  Symptoms
  Cause
  Solution

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Applies to:

Oracle Net Services - Version: 10.2.0.3.0 to 10.2.0.4 - Release: 10.2 to 10.2
Information in this document applies to any platform.

Symptoms

The listener and pmon stop communicating with each other.

Symptoms include:

1) The listener.log no longer shows service_update messages from that instance.

2) Not being able to make new connections to the database

3) ORA-12516: TNS:listener could not find available handler with matching protocol stack

Cause

This is due to Bug 8232287 PMON HAS STOPPED REGISTERING ITS SERVICES

Solution

Download and apply Patch 8232287

This bug is also fixed in 10.2.0.5, 10.2.0.4.3 and later, and 11.2.0.1 and later.