title: How do I work around the Oracle DBLinks limit in Entity Framework?
body: <p>I am creating an MVC application using Oracle's Entity Framework, and am writing a bit of code to iterate through all relevant DBLinks and testing them out, returning a grid of results (success/fail). My problem is that after using the fourth DBLink, I get an error "ORA-02020: too many database links in use". </p>
  
  <p>I have tried to explicitly close each DBLink after using it ("alter session close database link LinkName"), but I then receive an error "ORA-02080: database link is in use". </p>
  
  <p>I have tried issuing "COMMIT" statement before attempting to close the DBLink, but that doesn't change the error ("database link is in use").</p>
  
  <p>I have tried to closing the database connection, but I still receive the "database link is in use" error when I create a new connection and try to close the DBLink.</p>
  
  <p>Unfortunately, increasing the number of DBLinks available (open_links, open_links_per_instance) is not an option.</p>
  
  <p>Has anyone seen this with Entity Framework and discovered a solution? Does anyone have any ideas of what else to try?</p>