ORA-12705 Cannot access NLS data files or invalid environment specified

I’d been getting this error when trying to connect to an Oracle Database using SQLPlus, unless I happened to be in the Oracle home bin directory.

Trawling for an answer it turns out you need to modify a registry entry which indicates the NLS parameter used by SQLPlus when it attempts to ALTER SESSION at login;

Navigate to registry key [ HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ Software \ Oracle ] and rename or delete the NLS_LANG value.

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Phil Harding

SharePoint Consultant, Developer, Father, Husband and Climber. View all posts by Phil Harding

9 thoughts on “ORA-12705 Cannot access NLS data files or invalid environment specified”

kgluch says:

January 16, 2008 at 10:04

Thanks for this info – it has helped me a lot.
Nimesh Dhruve says:

December 23, 2008 at 20:47

Thanks. It saved my tons of efforts.
shaz says:

December 16, 2009 at 04:18

Thanks a ton.. was a big help
herry says:

January 5, 2010 at 08:42

are you kidding?
after hours searching lot of error page, you just give us simple help but it’s work ….

thanks
ansha82 says:

February 17, 2010 at 10:34

Cool… It worked for me….. Thanks a lot.
Phil Harding says:

February 17, 2010 at 10:46

Glad it helped
Dave Hayman says:

May 4, 2010 at 08:55

Banging my head against the brick wall (you know the one we’ve all head butted before) thinking it was a driver error. I don’t like messing with the registry but this worked a treat. Thanks alot 🙂
M Tennant says:

April 26, 2011 at 22:46

Thanks. Quick explanation — and solved the problem.
sreerssree says:

August 25, 2011 at 11:27

Thanx a Lot. It was a quick resolution.

regards
Sree