Corrupted data from StyledTextPlus Fields due to Unicode settings

Corrupted data from StyledTextPlus Fields due to Unicode settings

The problem:

Data from StyledTextPlus Fields is corrupted, not stored properly and not recoverable in a three-tier system using a Windows Server 2003 R2 (SP2) middle tier. Only half the characters are saved into the Data (CLOB) column, this data is then not valid RTF and is not properly reloaded into the field. (The database is Oracle10g (10.2.0.4) and the Oracle client is 10.2.0.2.22.)

Solution of the problem:

The registry setting

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\ORACLE\HOME0\NLS_LANG was set to

AMERICAN_AMERICA.AL16UTF16

When it should have been

AMERICAN_AMERICA.WE8MSWIN1252

This setting is put in there by the oracle Installer from the Windows Regional Settings, but for some reason it got a Unicode value.

It’s known that certain combinations of character sets on the Oracle server and client give problems. One of the reasons why using “AL16UTF16” on a Windows client may lead to problems is that Windows is not really supporting Unicode natively.