Re: Startup Error: ORA-00205

Florian Ungersboeck wrote:

> Hello,
>
> I'm a student, new to Oracle, and I try to set up a sample database using
> Oracle9i (9.2.0.4 Devoloper's Release) for Linux (64bit).
>
> The Installation was quite simple by reading the "Release notes" and the
> "Oracle9i Database Administrator's Guide".
>
> According to the "Oracle9i Database Administrator's Guide" I created the
> init****.ora file and created a sample-DB using Oracle managed files and a
> server parameter file. The files are there, but when I try to start the
> database, I receive the following error-message:
>
> SQL> connect sys/password as sysdba
> Connected.
> SQL> startup mount
> ORACLE instance started.
>
> Total System Global Area 127371024 bytes
> Fixed Size 743184 bytes
> Variable Size 109051904 bytes
> Database Buffers 16777216 bytes
> Redo Buffers 798720 bytes
> ORA-00205: error in identifying controlfile, check alert log for more info
>

>[snip]

> CREATE DATABASE iseries
> USER SYS IDENTIFIED BY v5r3i810
> USER SYSTEM IDENTIFIED BY v5r3i810
> MAXINSTANCES 1
> CHARACTER SET WE8ISO8859P15
> EXTENT MANAGEMENT LOCAL
> DEFAULT TEMPORARY TABLESPACE tempts
> UNDO TABLESPACE undotbs;
>
>
>
>
> thanks in advance

Your create database statement is distinctly lacking in 'datafile....' clauses. Which means you've used OMF (Oracle Managed Files) technology.

OMF has an interesting problem. Whilst it knows where to CREATE files, it has no way of informing the instance where to FIND them afterwards. Therefore, your statement 'create database' has successfully create a control file, but the instance has no way of knowing how to get hold of it afterwards, and hence your error message.

Now, there is one exception to this dichotomy. If you are using an spfile at the time that you create your database, then OMF will not only create the files for you automatically, but a CONTROL_FILES=/blah/blah/wherever entry will be written into the spfile for you automatically as well. At which point, the instance WILL know where to find them.

Without that spfile, however, the dichotomy between where things are created and where things can be found still exists -and can only be resolved by you adding the entry CONTROL_FILES=/xxx/xxxx/xxxx youself into the init.ora.

Your second post here shows us something that looks suspiciously like an old-fashioned init.ora... and your own post here says in black and white 'I created an init*****.ora'. Therefore, you have to do the manual editing, and remind Oracle where OMF put the control files. After that, it will all be plain sailing.

I have always found OMF a mystifying invention on Oracle's part. It has few apparent advantages, and lots of gotchas -of which this "where is my control file?" is just one. All your data files will be autoextensible, with no MAXSIZE and no NEXT increment, for example. I don't think I could have come up with a worse combination for performance-critical databases if I'd tried.

I tend, therefore, to take Monty Python's advice whenever OMF hoves into view: Run Away! Run Away!

Better, I think, to control these things properly, which means specifying all the details about where data files etc should end up.

That said, OMF suddenly makes an awful lot of sense in 10g in combination with another new feature, ASM (automatic storage management). Very nice indeed in 10g. But half of the OMF-ASM duo was released in 9i for no real reason other than to get it stress-tested, I suspect.

Regards
HJR Received on Mon Aug 16 2004 - 18:26:44 CDT