Oracle 19c on Windows may flood your trace file directory

Posted on March 11, 2021 by Mike.Dietrich Flaws and Pitfalls Oracle Database 19c 17

Oh … it’s Windows week here. And all this even though since I didn’t install Oracle on Windows for quite a while. But of course I’m fully aware that many of you out there operate Oracle on Windows. In this particular case thanks to Joël for the pointer to this issue. Oracle 19c on Windows may flood your trace file directory.

Oracle 19c on Windows may flood your trace file directory

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What happens?

In every release of Oracle 19c, at least until 19.10.0 BP, you may find out that every few minutes a trace file gets written into the %ORACLE_BASE%\diag\..\..\trace directory. And all …

ORA-12638 on Windows only from Oracle 19.10.0 onwards

Posted on March 10, 2021 by Mike.Dietrich Behavior Change Flaws and Pitfalls Oracle Database 19c 15

You like unexpected changes and surprises, don’t you? And especially those which aren’t in the patch notes or the docs. I blogged about such changes a few weeks ago. And thanks to the people reading this blog, I learned now about another change with Oracle 19.10.0 on the Windows platform. You may receive now an ORA-12638 on Windows only from Oracle 19.10.0 onwards.

ORA-12638 on Windows only from Oracle 19.10.0 onward

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What has been changed?

So at first, thanks to Ernst and Marcus for bringing this to my attention. This is an issue which happens on MS Windows only.

When you …

Workaround for sdoloadj.sql errors with Datapatch in 19.9.0 and 19.10.0

Posted on March 2, 2021 by Mike.Dietrich Flaws and Pitfalls 0

The other week a customer from my hometown alerted me about an issue they saw when applying the 19.9.0 RU. A long sequence of errors in the datapatch run, all of them signaled from sdoloadj.sql. They opened an SR. And Support had an – understandable – recommendation the customer didn’t want to implement: Install JAVAVM. But thanks to my PM mate, Hans Viehmann (Mr Spatial), here is a simple Workaround for sdoloadj.sql errors with Datapatch in 19.9.0 and 19.10.0. And it may even apply to later releases, too.

Workaround for sdoloadj.sql errors with Datapatch in 19.9.0 and 19.10.0

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What happens?

Take …

Important Recommended Patches for Oracle Database 19c

Posted on February 23, 2021 by Mike.Dietrich Patch Recommendation 13

It took a while – but now you can find a new MyOracle Support (MOS) Note with a list of Important Recommended Patches for Oracle Database 19c. It is actually a must-read, regardless whether you are upgrading or migration to 19c, or in case you are already on 19c.

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What do you get?

Please check MOS Note: 2720807.1 – Oracle Database 19c Important Recommended One-off Patches. It gives you a list of important fixes for Oracle Database 19c. In the initial version of the note you could select for each available Release …

Oracle Database 19.10.0 and Blockchain Tables and COMPATIBLE

Posted on February 18, 2021 by Mike.Dietrich Behavior Change Oracle Database 19c Parameters Patch Recommendation 2

Many of you recognized that we delivered a new feature with Oracle Database 19.10.0, the January 2021 Release Upgrade. So I’d like to put a few interesting things together from the upgrade and migration perspective regarding Oracle Database 19.10.0 and Blockchain Tables and COMPATIBLE.

Oracle Database 19.10.0 and Blockchain Tables and COMPATIBLE

Photo by Daniel von Appen on Unsplash

What are Blockchain Tables?

At first, I don’t want to repeat what other people have blogged and written about already. You may just go through the blog posts of Connor McDonald and Tim Hall and others to learn more about this cool feature.

Connor McDonald about “Blockchain

Virtual Classroom Series – Episode 2: Database Upgrade on Feb 18

Posted on February 16, 2021 by Mike.Dietrich Workshop 10

If you haven’t signed up, there are less than 48 hours left to sign up now to our Virtual Classroom Series – Episode 2: Database Upgrade on Feb 18. We’ll cover everything you need to know for a smooth and successful database upgrade to Oracle 19c.

Virtual Classroom Series - Episode 2: Database Upgrade on Feb 18

What’s the topic this time?

Upgrades.

What else? Haha!

No worries. We have a lot of fresh content and a full agenda. Our focus is to equip you with everything you need to know about upgrades – to make your next upgrade(s) the smoothest upgrade experience ever. We will cover mostly AutoUpgrade but …

Virtual Classroom Episode 8: Upgrade Internals and so much more

Posted on February 9, 2021 by Mike.Dietrich Workshop 2

This is your final chance to sign up within the next hours to our Virtual Classroom Episode 8: Upgrade Internals and so much more We will run this session on Wednesday Feb 10 at 10:00h CET tomorrow. And in case you don’t know yet what to do on a ice-cold winter Wednesday morning, this is what you should do.

Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Upgrades (But Were Afraid to Ask)

Virtual Classroom Episode 8: Upgrade Internals and so much more

You see the agenda in the picture above. We will cover not only internals but also diagnosability, monitoring, troubleshooting, tipps, tricks, secrets, workarounds, gothas, dos and don’ts – …

New Parameters in Oracle 19.10.0 – and a default change

Posted on February 8, 2021 by Mike.Dietrich Behavior Change Parameters 5

Oracle Database 19.10.0, the January 2021 Release Update (RU), does seem to change some well known rules. Especially when you have a closer look to a backported feature, Blockchain Tables. But I will write a bit more about this change next week. For now, let’s have a closer look at New Parameters in Oracle 19.10.0 – and a default change.

Photo by Stephen Leonardi on Unsplash

New Parameters in Oracle 19.10.0

This is the list of new parameters in the January 2021 Release Update 19.10.0:

Parameter	Description	Default
blockchain_table_max_no_drop	maximum idle retention minutes for blockchain table	NONE
container_data

Sign Up Now: Database Release Strategy and Patching Best Practices on Feb 4 – 10am PST

Posted on February 3, 2021 by Mike.Dietrich Workshop 6

Tomorrow we’ll start our new Virtual Classroom Web Seminar Series, this time for the Americas in a convenient 10am – noon Pacific Time zone. So this is your final change to Sign Up Now: Database Release Strategy and Patching Best Practices on Feb 4 – 10am PST.

Photo by Etty Fidele on Unsplash

Why you want to participate?

Roy, Daniel and I will kick of this series with the Episode 1: Database Release Strategy and Patching Best Practices for a reason. We get a ton of question regarding both topics every day. Everybody wants to know about …

You may need a one-off for DBMS_OPTIM_BUNDLE in 19.10.0

Posted on February 1, 2021 by Mike.Dietrich Optimizer Patch Recommendation 8

It’s been a while since I blogged about the DBMS_OPTIM_BUNDLE – and to me, the package is still sort of a mystery. Ideally you can least and enable or disable behavior changing optimizer fixes per RU. And in Oracle 19.10.0, you will find a new surprise. So You may need a one-off for DBMS_OPTIM_BUNDLE in 19.10.0.

You may need a one-off for DBMS_OPTIM_BUNDLE in 19.10.0

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Quick Recap

Just in case you haven’t dealt with DBMS_OPTIM_BUNDLE yet or for a while, a quick recap.

With this procedure, you can list the available patches to turn on or off at will:

SQL> set serveroutput

No RURs for 12.2.0.1 – and Oracle 11.2.0.4 left Extended Support

Posted on January 26, 2021 by Mike.Dietrich Patch Recommendation Release Schedule 0

Last week I blogged about the quarterly patching fun when applying the Release Updates to my environments. But I completely forget to mention and explain a few things. There are No RURs for 12.2.0.1 – and Oracle 11.2.0.4 left Extended Support.

No RURs for 12.2.0.1 - and Oracle 11.2.0.4 left Extended Support

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No Release Update Revisions for Oracle 12.2.0.1

Thanks to my friend Rodrigo Jorge who messaged me on the weekend. He goes way deeper with applying the quarterly patches and highlights the differences. And he recognized and blogged already about the fact that there are no RURs available for Oracle 12.2.0.1.

And …

Do you need the Mitigation Patch in CDB$ROOT and all PDBS?

Posted on January 25, 2021 by Mike.Dietrich JVM Patch Recommendation 10

Thanks to Axel Delin for asking this very reasonable question on the blog. Do you need the Mitigation Patch in CDB$ROOT and all PDBS? Background for this question is that Axel can’t remove JVM but doesn’t use it. A typical case we cover in our slides and presentations as well. And in this case, the Mitigation Patch will become your friend. Please note: If you DON’T have JAVAVM in your database, you won’t need to pay attention and instead could stop reading now.

Photo by Mick Truyts on Unsplash

Mitigation Patch

You can read more about the Mitigation Patch, and …

Patching all my environments with the January 2021 OJVM Bundles

Posted on January 22, 2021 by Mike.Dietrich JVM Patch Recommendation 8

You may have read my blog post from the other day about patching my environments with the January 2021 Release Updates. But as I installed now Java in all my databases for testing purposes, I will quickly demonstrate how Patching all my environments with the January 2021 OJVM Bundles works.

Patching all my environments with the January 2021 OJVM Bundles

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Security Alert January 2021

Let me start with the Security Alert for January 2021. And don’t forget to take a look at the Oracle Database Server Risk Matrix for January 2021. This time, the is a 4.8 risk score issue with …

Sign up for the Upgrade 19c Virtual Classroom Seminars for the US, Canada and LAD

Posted on January 21, 2021 by Mike.Dietrich Workshop 2

It took a while. And many of you asked whether we will run our Virtual Classroom Seminars we ran successfully for Australia and New Zealand in April and from June to now in EMEA for the US, Canada and South and Latin America time zones as well. And we do. It’s time to Sign up for the Upgrade 19c Virtual Classroom Seminars for the US, Canada and LAD.

Photo by Philippe Bout on Unsplash

Everything you need to know about Upgrade, Migration and Consolidation

When we ran these events especially for EMEA, a lot of colleagues asked us whether …

Patching all my environments with the January 2021 Patch Bundles

Posted on January 20, 2021 by Mike.Dietrich Patch Recommendation 33

Groundhog day on the upgrade blog. It’s time for my quaterly Patching all my environments with the January 2021 Patch Bundles blog post. And still no RAC and ASM. Sorry for that … too many virtual events and other tasks since months unfortunately.

Photo by Bofu Shaw on Unsplash

As usual, an important annotation upfront: I patch in-place due to space issues. But in reality, you please patch always out-of-place with a separate home. Please see this blog post about how to apply the RU directly when you provision a new home with OUI.

Security Alert January 2021

Find …

Cool Features Web Seminar Jan 2021 – Quick Recap

Posted on January 15, 2021 by Mike.Dietrich Workshop 8

Thanks to everyone attending our Cool Features – not only for DBAs web seminar yesterday on Jan 14, 2021. As over 500 attendees stayed until the end of the 2 hour long session with not less than 16 different features, we assume that you’ve enjoyed it. And from the questions you did ask, it looks like as some of the features really caught your attention. On Feb 10 it’s time for the next session for EMEA and India. But beforehand, let’s do a Cool Features Web Seminar Jan 2021 – Quick Recap, especially regarding the questions you’ve had.

Cool Features Web Seminar Jan 2021 - Quick Recap

Photo

Cool Features not only for DBAs – Virtual Classroom Series No.7

Posted on January 11, 2021 by Mike.Dietrich Workshop 0

Happy New Year to all of you. I hope you are all well. After an heavily active 2020 with more virtual seminars than ever before it’s time to start in 2021 with Cool Features not only for DBAs – Virtual Classroom Series No.7 on Jan 14, 2021.

Cool Features not only for DBAs - Virtual Classroom Series No.7

Photo by Jason Blackeye on Unsplash

Why Cool Features for DBAs?

Actually the idea is not new. And we’ve included some slides into our workshops already for quite a while. But there are simply too many cool features. Our focus is in features which usually don’t make it into advertising or …

Why is there a lib32 directory in Oracle 19.8.0 and 19.9.0?

Posted on December 21, 2020 by Mike.Dietrich Flaws and Pitfalls Installation Patch Recommendation 0

I received two emails from different customers within a week – and both asked the same thing: Why is there a lib32 directory in Oracle 19.8.0 and 19.9.0? In one case, it was more like “We are wondering” but in the other case it caused issues during patching.

Photo by Erik Mclean on Unsplash

What happens?

Due to a packaging issue most likely, there is a lib32 directory appearing after you patch your homes to either 19.8.0 or 19.9.0. With the next RU, 19.10.0, this should not be the case anymore.

Why does this sound strage?

The first customer who …

Recap: Support Periods for Oracle 11.2.0.4, on-prem and in the cloud

Posted on December 17, 2020 by Mike.Dietrich Cloud Release Schedule 6

You may have recognized that I don’t update the blog as frequent as usual. But these times are very busy with plenty of conferences and many of our customers preparing for the move to 19c in the more quieter period of the year. And this is the right time to do a quick recap: Support Periods for Oracle 11.2.0.4, on-prem and in the cloud.

Recap: Support Period for Oracle 11.2.0.4, on-prem and in the cloud

Photo by Arnaud STECKLE on Unsplash – this car is a VW Karman Ghia

11.2.0.what?

Ah, well. Do you remember when Oracle Database 11.2.0.1 got released?

No worries, I’ve had to look it up by …

Download the newest AutoUpgrade for 19c and 21c upgrades

Posted on December 16, 2020 by Mike.Dietrich AutoUpgrade Oracle Database 19c Oracle Database 21c 25

It’s out now and available since yesterday: AutoUpgrade 21c. Download the newest AutoUpgrade for 19c and 21c upgrades with many new features and improvements.

Photo by Jordan McGee on Unsplash

Download it!

This is the current version of AutoUpgrade:

build.hash 8ee6880
build.version 21.1.1
build.date 2020/12/14 14:41:34
build.max_target_version 21
build.supported_target_versions 12.2,18,19,21
build.type production
48 bug fixes since v21.0.0 release
Tag: v21.1.1
Description: This is the release for 21.1.1 MOS only

As usual, download it please from:

MOS Note: 2485457.1 – AutoUpgrade Tool

What’s new?

Non-CDB to PDB Upgrades
- AutoUpgrade can upgrade and convert a non-CDB to a PDB in a new

Apply Patch 31088341 before Upgrade to prevent ORA-1403

Posted on November 23, 2020 by Mike.Dietrich Flaws and Pitfalls 6

As I learned from a customer this week, this patch is a must have when you use Partitioning and you attempt to upgrade to Oracle 19.9.0 or earlier. So please apply patch 31088341 before Upgrade to prevent ORA-1403 happening.

Apply Patch 31088341 before Upgrade to prevent ORA-1403

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What is the issue?

This applies to all 19c upgrades at least until 19.9.0.

The fix is included from 19.10.0 Release Update onward. So if you are upgrading to 19.10.0 or higher, you can stop reading here (thanks Pablo for the hint!).

You may see this error pattern in catupgrd0.log:

==Error from catupgrd0.log===

=================================================================

Fixed Objects Stats Gathering Fails – what do you do now?

Posted on November 16, 2020 by Mike.Dietrich Flaws and Pitfalls 0

A few days ago I blogged about what you could do when Fixed Objects Stats Gathering is slow in an upgrade process. You can skip the preupgrade gathering, and the postupgrade gathering does not happen anymore since the October 2020 version of AutoUpgrade. Still, I came across another issue the other day: Fixed Objects Stats Gathering Fails – what do you do now?

Fixed Objects Stats Gathering Fails - what do you do now?

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What happened?

Actually this is connected to the Fixed Objects Stats Gathering is slow in an upgrade case. The customer encountered an incredible long runtime. And the support engineer …

ORA-29702 – and your instance does not startup in the cluster anymore

Posted on November 13, 2020 by Mike.Dietrich ASM / RAC / GI Flaws and Pitfalls Patch Recommendation 11

This is the right blog post for a Friday 13th. And please forgive me – I wanted to put this on the blog earlier as two of my customers hit this weeks ago already. But it must have fallen through the cracks. Still, now it is hopefully not too late to tell you what you should do if you hit ORA-29702 – and your instance does not startup in the cluster anymore. Especially when you tested a database upgrade – and after a restore, the database doesn’t want to start, no matter what you try.

ORA-29702 - and your instance does not startup in the cluster anymore

Photo by Nadine Shaabana

Upgrade Essentials – Videos for the Virtual Classroom Series 2020

Posted on November 10, 2020 by Mike.Dietrich Video / Viewlet Workshop 0

Roy, Daniel and I ran 6 workshops in our Virtual Classroom Series 2000 format. Each of them is between 90 and 120 minutes. This sounds quite long but of course you can scroll forward if you are interested in only a part of it. We consider those the Upgrade Essentials – Videos for the Virtual Classroom Series 2020. As as we now completed the 6th web seminar, it’s time for a short recap.

Upgrade Essentials - Videos for the Virtual Classroom Series 2020

Photo by Niamat Ullah on Unsplash

Is Upgrade that complicated?

Good question. If upgrade is so easy as we say, why do you need 6 virtual sessions …

What happens?

What has been changed?

What happens?

What do you get?

What are Blockchain Tables?

What’s the topic this time?

Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Upgrades (But Were Afraid to Ask)

New Parameters in Oracle 19.10.0

Why you want to participate?

Quick Recap

No Release Update Revisions for Oracle 12.2.0.1

Mitigation Patch

Security Alert January 2021

Everything you need to know about Upgrade, Migration and Consolidation

Security Alert January 2021

Why Cool Features for DBAs?

What happens?

Why does this sound strage?

11.2.0.what?

Download it!

What’s new?

Oracle Database 21c

What is the issue?

What happened?

Is Upgrade that complicated?

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