In our process to upgrade to Oracle 7.3.2.3.1, I experienced 4 system aborts (sa 1458). Hp identified them as caused by an Oracle process. So I contacted Oracle. I provided them some of my config files and they succeeded in reproducing the problem (same sa1458). It seems to be related to the use of the PRESPAWN option in SQL*Net configuration. For those having that release of Oracle, I suggest you to stay away from that option (that's sad because it's a nice one). That problem was different from the one Joe Smith had last fall (related to the sqlnet.expire_time parm). I have been surprised about the time Oracle's support took to identified the problem. Three days only, which is quite less than months I experienced one time before. Michel Gauthier