creating a 9i database in 8.1 compatibility mode

Anyone tried this? Succeeded?

I recently upgraded a server with numerous databases on it from 8i (8.1.7) to 9i. (actually did full exports, uninstalled/deleted oracle 8i, installed 9i, imported data). 5 out of 6 databases were fine. Just one database is giving me trouble with just one client - some older financial application.

Bottom line is I can't get rid of that client immediately so I need to solve this quickly. I tried to modify the 'compatibility' parameter but ran into ora-00402 errors - basically, can't down-grade the compatibility once the database is built, since too many features are built into the database already. Fair enough, makes sense.

So I built a whole new test database, and set compatibility to 8.1.0 at the initial creation stage - but it would not build due to an obscure error (ora-01092 - instance terminated unexpectedly...), pointing to same fundamental issue. I guess I optimistically hoped that if I set compatibility to 8.1.0 during creation, Oracle would figure out what that meant but it seems like they expect me to change all the other paramters that are problematic in a 9i environment. Is this true?

Based on the query 'select * from v$compatibility where release != '0.0.0.0.0', I found several items that were set to 9.0.0.0.0. I can presumably change all them .. but what to exactly ...?
Here they are:
redodata
undodata
txnaudn
undotbsp
lgmr_b
pdmlitls

For now, I've moved the whole database over to an 8.1 server, but I can't keep it there either!

Thanks for any insight. Chris Received on Fri Dec 21 2001 - 18:02:14 CST