So I have an Oracle instance, and I know it's running on this system, I've su'd to the oracle user, and I'm trying to connect using "/ as sysdba". However, when I do connect, it says the instance is idle. I know the database is up and opened, because my application's talking to it. My paths (ORACLE_HOME, etc.) might be incorrect: any idea which incorrect setting might result in this? % sqlplus "/ as sysdba" SQL*Plus: Release 10.2.0.3.0 - Production on Mon Dec 8 09:23:22 2008 Copyright (c) 1982, 2006, Oracle. All Rights Reserved. Connected to an idle instance. 09:23:22 SQL Disconnected % ps -ef | grep smon oracle 6961 1 0 Nov 05 ? 1:24 ora_smon_ORA003 %