Oracle Database Express Edition (XE)

Hi,

I'm experiencing a strange problem with my Oracle XE installation, I'd appreciate some help in working out what's going on, and ideally find a way to stop the strange behaviour.


The Problem
My Oracle 10g Express Edition installation on Windows XP Professional started behaving strangely recently, and I became unable to connect to it. Since the problem first appeared I have reinstalled it a number of times and I have identified what is happening, but I don't know why.

After installation using a silent install file very similar to this one: [OracleXE-install.iss|http://download.oracle.com/otn/nt/oracle10g/xe/10201/OracleXE-install.iss] the listener is set to use port 1521, and http://127.0.0.1:8080/apex works fine.

If I then reboot the listener is set to use a different port value. This is currently 1210, but has been set to different values during my experiments. C:\oraclexe\app\oracle\product\10.2.0\server\NETWORK\ADMIN\listener.ora was altered on reboot to specify (PORT = 1210), and I found the following line in C:\oraclexe\app\oracle\admin\XE\bdump\alert_xe.log:
ALTER SYSTEM SET local_listener='(ADDRESS = (PROTOCOL=TCP)(HOST=localhost)(port=1210))' SCOPE=BOTH;

If I alter listener.ora to use (PORT = 1521) and restart the OracleServiceXE and OracleXETNSListener services I can connect on port 1521 but apex doesn't work. If I alter listener.ora to use (PORT = 1210) again I can connect on port 1210 and apex works again.

If I alter listener.ora to use (PORT = 1521) and reboot the port value is altered when I reboot. I think I've seen the port reset from 1521 just when restarting the services.

My installation had been working well for a few weeks before this started happening, the only change I can identify with this problem is installing an update for Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack (allows Office 2003 to open 2007 era files). I have since uninstalled this feature.

I've investigated which ports are in use using the Netstat command (+netstat -a -b+ is my preferred approach) and nothing else is using ports 1521 or 8080 (specifically I'm not running tomcat).


The Questions
- What is causing the listener port to be altered when I reboot?
- How can I resolve this so that after a reboot I have the listener working on port 1521 and apex working?


Thanks for all the help,
Mark Watkins.