Problem

Invalid location or invalid file error when running the interface extracts or imports.

Solution

There are 2 settings which are normally either not set or set incorrectly to a path that doesn't exist:

1. USER option interpath: this needs to be a location on the database server as the database server sees it.
2. utl_file_dir on the database.  This is a database parameter - you can check its value by doing the following query:
   select value from v$parameter where name='utl_file_dir';
   It either needs to be set to '*' which allows any location on the database server to be used, or to the specific path used in the interpath user option.  You will need to ask your database administrator to change this for you as it requires a restart of the database.

See Also

Can’t export PED file in MAI3863