Re: ideas needed to track down a mysterious problem

sybrandb_at_hccnet.nl írta:
> On 13 May 2007 01:36:44 -0700, prunoki <hegyvari_at_ardents.hu> wrote:
>
> >Right now I started to establish a protocol, organizing the todo-s
> >into steps which should be taken before restarting. It is something
> >like:
> >
> >- examine the active sessions
> >- examine the logs
> >- check the CPU and disk resources
> >- etc
> >
> >Any ideas what to add to this list? Any queries that might help
> >finding out what happens? Or better, any ideas why this might happen?
> >What does the fact that a system state dump could not be taken mean to
> >you? From my point of view this could well be an Oracle bug, or
> >anything.
>
> 8i is desupported, Oracle still has extended support for 8i, but only
> for 8.1.7.4. You should upgrade to 8.1.7.4 asap.
>
> Other than that you shouldn't resort to Microsoft tactics. Just
> restarting the system isn't going to help you out.
> The *very first* thing you should do is examine the alert log. You
> should above all look for a database which can't archive it's redo
> logs anymore, as this is one of the primary causes why a database
> becomes 'hung'
> Then you should check 'what it is waiting for'. If you can connect,
> installing statspack might be handy, because it will provide all
> relevant information.
> Install it using $ORACLE_HOME/rdbms/admin/spcreate, run statspack.snap
> two times within 15 minutes, and run
> $ORACLE_HOME/rdbms/admin/spreport.sql to get relevant output.
>
> It is most likely a hung archiver and NOT an Oracle bug.
>
> --
> Sybrand Bakker
> Senior Oracle DBA

Thanks for the ideas so far. I will include checking the alert log in the list.

This is a production database, so we must restart it as soon as possible, if all else fails.

I also think we should upgrade to 8.1.7.4, but it requires testing which the business people would provide more easily if we knew that the upgrade would help. Since we do not know that for sure, they are a bit reluctant, but we will proceed in this direction if enough people vote for it.

Krisztian Received on Sun May 13 2007 - 06:46:33 CDT