I have an orion server using a datasource. I want to connect to this datasource from outside the application but I'm having problems. I have created this program. import java.util.*; import java.sql.*; import javax.naming.*; import com.evermind.sql.*; public class TestConnect { public TestConnect() { try { System.out.println ("Before IC"); InitialContext ic = new InitialContext(); System.out.println ("After IC"); OrionPooledDataSource ds = (OrionPooledDataSource)ic.lookup("java:comp/env/external/DATASOURCE"); Connection c = ds.getConnection(); System.out.println ("After Connection, c is isClosed = " + new Boolean (c.isClosed()).toString()); String query = "SELECT COUNT(*) FROM USERS"; PreparedStatement s = c.prepareStatement(query); System.out.println ("After createStatement, s is null = " + new Boolean (s==null).toString()); ResultSet rs = s.executeQuery (); rs.next(); System.out.println ("User Count = " + rs.getString ("COUNT (*)")); rs.close(); s.close(); c.close(); } catch (SQLException ex) { System.out.println (ex.getMessage()); ex.printStackTrace(); } catch (NamingException ex) { System.out.println (ex.getMessage()); } } public static void main (String[] args) { new TestConnect(); } } I have also set up the jndi.properties file java.naming.factory.initial=com.evermind.server.ApplicationClientInitialContextFactory java.naming.provider.url=ormi://localhost/app java.naming.security.principal=admin java.naming.security.credentials=password The program runs and i getting the following output and error. Before IC After IC Exception in thread "main" java.lang.NullPointerException at com.evermind.sql.OrionPooledDataSource.d7(JAX) at com.evermind.sql.OrionPooledDataSource.d8(JAX) at com.evermind.sql.OrionPooledDataSource.getConnection(JAX) at TestConnect.<init>(TestConnect.java:17) at TestConnect.main(TestConnect.java:45) Has anyone got any ideas why i would be getting this error. I have also tried different DataSource classes to see if you had to us a specific one for remote connections. Still not luck. Thanks Owen