Hi Nick, thanks for your help. >OK, since you're using APR 1.3, you can get a bit more error message by patching mod_dbd as follows (modulo my mailer's line wrap): I patched mod_dbd and now it logs a bit more: [Tue Jan 08 12:40:23 2008] [error] (20014)Internal error: DBD: Can't connect to oracle: \xf5\x1c\x10\xb45+ [Tue Jan 08 12:40:23 2008] [error] (20014)Internal error: DBD: failed to initialise Does this \xf5\x1c\x10\xb45+ tell you something? >1. Is that at top-level or inside a <virtualhost>? It ist at top-level. >2. Does dropping DBDMin to 0 make any difference? Setting DBMIN to 0 leads to no error messages at startup time. But when i try to access the protected directory and enter user and password i get an internal server error. The error log then says: [Tue Jan 08 12:40:23 2008] [notice] Apache/2.2.6 (Unix) configured -- resuming normal operations [Tue Jan 08 12:40:46 2008] [error] Internal error: pcfg_openfile() called with NULL filename Do you have any suggestions? Thanks again. Holger _______________________________________________________________________ Jetzt neu! Schützen Sie Ihren PC mit McAfee und WEB.DE. 30 Tage kostenlos testen. http://www.pc-sicherheit.web.de/startseite/?mc=022220 --------------------------------------------------------------------- The official User-To-User support forum of the Apache HTTP Server Project. See <URL:http://httpd.apache.org/userslist.html> for more info. To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscribe@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx " from the digest: users-digest-unsubscribe@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx For additional commands, e-mail: users-help@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx