Arabic characters not displaying in oracle database We have a Oracle database 8.1.7 running for many years on Win-2000. We wanted to move the database on a newer machine running Win 2003. I did the following


I made a cold backup of old database.
Installed the oracle database same ver on the new machine and moved
the data files from the old to the new server.
Imported the data dump taken from export (taken from old server) on
the new server.
Without a full test we shifted live to the new server.
Everything was OK on the new oracle server except for the Arabic
characters. I am getting ?? (questions marks) characters in the
Arabic fields.


I checked the nls_database_parameters on both the servers. 

Select * from nls_database_paramters;  


The old database had: nls_char &amp; nls_nchar = Ar8mswin1256
The new database had nls_char &amp; nls_nchar = We8iso8859p1  

I then did the following in the new server:  


Changed the character set (nls_char)in the new database to
AR8mswin1256.
Changed the Nls Nchar set to Ar8mswin1256.


All the above done were by an alter database command as below: 

SVRMGR&gt; STARTUP MOUNT;  
SVRMGR&gt; ALTER SYSTEM ENABLE RESTRICTED SESSION;  
SVRMGR&gt; ALTER SYSTEM SET JOB_QUEUE_PROCESSES=0;  
SVRMGR&gt; ALTER SYSTEM SET AQ_TM_PROCESSES=0;  
SVRMGR&gt; ALTER DATABASE OPEN;  
SVRMGR&gt; AALTER DATABASE NATIONAL CHARACTER SET ar8mswin1256;  
SVRMGR&gt; SHUTDOWN IMMEDIATE;  
SVRMGR&gt; STARTUP;  


I checked nls_database_parameters in the new server both nls_char, nls_nchar was changed to Ar8mswin1256.

I checked the database through our ERP applicatoin but still Arabic characters displaying in ??.

I then checked the registry of new Oracle server. The value of nls_lang is We8iso8859p1
whereas the registry of the old server had value of nls_lang as Ar8mswin1256. I changed
the value in new server to be American_america.Ar8mswin1256. Checked the database still
arabic characters displaying as ??.

The registry of Client has nls_lang as American_america.Ar8mswin1256.

It is a production database. How can I solve the problem of Arabic characters being displayed as ??? in the new server?

I still have the old server database but it is not live. It doesnt contain updated
data.
SHUTDOWN IMMEDIATE;

STARTUP MOUNT;

ALTER SYSTEM ENABLE RESTRICTED SESSION;

ALTER SYSTEM SET JOB_QUEUE_PROCESSES=0;

ALTER SYSTEM SET AQ_TM_PROCESSES=0;

ALTER DATABASE OPEN;

ALTER DATABASE CHARACTER SET INTERNAL_USE AR8MSWIN1256;

SHUTDOWN IMMEDIATE;

 -- or SHUTDOWN NORMAL; 

STARTUP;