RE: Oracle 12.2 is junk!

From: Noveljic Nenad <nenad.noveljic_at_vontobel.com>
Date: Mon, 21 Oct 2019 14:06:07 +0000
Message-ID: <29857_1571666789_5DADBB65_29857_8177_1_ed38ba3bbe454726bb6d9ff6a314e6a2_at_vontobel.com>



Hi Mladen,

The patching indeed became awkward since the good old sql upgrade scripts were replaced by datapatch. But I’m afraid, there is no way back, and leaving the databases unpatched isn’t a sustainable option.

datapatch invokes “opatch lsinventory” which basically generates some shell scripts for loading the inventory.xml into the database to check what needs to be done. In the past, there have been concurrency problems, because the generated files weren’t unique ( https://nenadnoveljic.com/blog/simultaneous-patching-not-possible-datapatch/ ) . The files in /u00/oracle/orabase/product/12.2.0.x.x/cfgtoollogs/opatch/lsinv/ should provide you more information about the error.

What worked for me is to start the datapatch with -apply and –force options to bypass the opatch invocations. You can specify the patch numbers after –apply. I tested this on many releases for non-cdb and 18.7.0.0.190716 multi-tenant.

Alternatively, if your database is multi-tenant, you could try patching the containers one by one – to avoid concurrency. (I haven’t tried this yet.)

Best regards,

Nenad

From: oracle-l-bounce_at_freelists.org <oracle-l-bounce_at_freelists.org> On Behalf Of Mladen Gogala Sent: Montag, 21. Oktober 2019 01:36
To: oracle-l <oracle-l_at_freelists.org> Subject: Oracle 12.2 is junk!

I tried patching plain vanilla Oracle 12.2 on OL 7.7 and patch installation went fine. However "datapatch" part did not work:

[oracle_at_ora122 30133625]$ $ORACLE_HOME/OPatch/datapatch -verbose SQL Patching tool version 12.2.0.1.0 Production on Sun Oct 20 19:19:07 2019 Copyright (c) 2012, 2019, Oracle. All rights reserved.

Log file for this invocation: /oracle/cfgtoollogs/sqlpatch/sqlpatch_4981_2019_10_20_19_19_07/sqlpatch_invocation.log

Connecting to database...OK
Note: Datapatch will only apply or rollback SQL fixes for PDBs

       that are in an open state, no patches will be applied to closed PDBs.
       Please refer to Note: Datapatch: Database 12c Post Patch SQL Automation
       (Doc ID 1585822.1)

Bootstrapping registry and package to current versions...done

Queryable inventory could not determine the current opatch status. Execute 'select dbms_sqlpatch.verify_queryable_inventory from dual' and/or check the invocation log
/oracle/cfgtoollogs/sqlpatch/sqlpatch_4981_2019_10_20_19_19_07/sqlpatch_invocation.log for the complete error.
Prereq check failed, exiting without installing any patches.

Please refer to MOS Note 1609718.1 and/or the invocation log /oracle/cfgtoollogs/sqlpatch/sqlpatch_4981_2019_10_20_19_19_07/sqlpatch_invocation.log for information on how to resolve the above errors.

SQL Patching tool complete on Sun Oct 20 19:19:20 2019

So, I did what the message suggests:

[oracle_at_ora122 30133625]$ sqlplus / as sysdba

SQL*Plus: Release 12.2.0.1.0 Production on Sun Oct 20 19:19:40 2019

Copyright (c) 1982, 2016, Oracle. All rights reserved.

Connected to:
Oracle Database 12c Enterprise Edition Release 12.2.0.1.0 - 64bit Production

SQL> select dbms_sqlpatch.verify_queryable_inventory from dual;

VERIFY_QUERYABLE_INVENTORY



ORA-20001: Latest xml inventory is not loaded into table

So, I went to Oracle Support and looked for the message above. No problems, I am not the first one to encounter this:

datapatch Fails with "ORA-20001: Latest xml inventory is not loaded into table" due to Block Corruption "ORA-01578" (Doc ID 2364930.1)

Here is the solution:

  1. Fix the corrupted blocks and validate SYSAUX datafile. Note: You need to restore from valid rman backups or datapump exp/imp.
  2. Re-run datapatch

cd $ORACLE_HOME/OPatch

./datapatch -verbose

So, I've had a fully functional Oracle DB, I install October patches and now I have to do recovery? What idiot got rid of catbundle PSU apply? I have been patching Oracle 11g for years and now I have all sorts of problems with Oracle 12.2 and Oracle 18.8? Do we really need a patching utility that causes unnecessary problems? I rolled back the patches and will not apply any more patches to 12.2 until Oracle comes up with the sure fire way to fix the "datapatch" problems and repopulate the tables from "lsinventory".

--

Mladen Gogala

Database Consultant

Tel: (347) 321-1217



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Received on Mon Oct 21 2019 - 16:06:07 CEST

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