Monitoring a job running in the database

[Chintz]

Hi Guys,

If a user comes to you and tells you that there is a job running in the database and he wants to know what is going on with it, 'cause the job normally takes a couple of minutes and today it is running for hours, what would the chain to actions in the database be?
Right now I have a user hovering over me he has a job that has been submitted from the mainframe to the Oracle database, wherein the job picks up data from a flat file and inserts it in a table in the Oracle database. I checked the database and I do see the job as an active job running and it is inserting data in the table mentioned. WHat would you suggest to do next to troubleshoot the job?
I checked the job from the Oracle Enterprise Manager Console.
Your input would be highly appreciated.

Thanks in advance.
Chintzs

[Mr.Hanky]

Is the table locked? This could explain it.
Also, if it normally runs in minutes why not just kill it and re-run it?

MH

[Rickenbacker]

Check the session in v$session_wait to see if it is waiting on anything.
Do several selects, about 5 seconds apart.
You'll need to format the output to make it more readable.

[mrchrispy]

have a look at this
HTH