Patching all my environments with the July 2021 Patch Bundles

Posted on July 27, 2021 by Mike.Dietrich Patch Recommendation 0

It’s patching day again. Hurray! Or not. I realize that at patching day, the 19c bundles are all missing. So wrote this blog post a bit after the usual release day. In my case this will include Oracle 19.12.0 RU and the July 2021 RU for Oracle 12.2.0.1. Please find the details about Patching all my environments with the July 2021 Patch Bundles below.

Patching all my environments with the July 2021 Patch Bundles

Photo by Piron Guillaume 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 …

New version of AutoUpgrade (21.2) is available for download

Posted on July 22, 2021 by Mike.Dietrich AutoUpgrade 0

As we often tell you, our Upgrade Development team is working hard to ensure an agile release cycle for AutoUpgrade. And the New version of AutoUpgrade (21.2) is available for download.

New version of AutoUpgrade (21.2) is available for download

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How to download?

As usual, you can (and should) always download the most recent version of AutoUpgrade from this MOS Note: 2485457.1. Usually the tool gets refreshed every 6-8 weeks. And the version you will download is guaranteed newer than the one you could get on disk.

New version of AutoUpgrade (21.2) is available for download

The fact the tool has a 21c versioning does not affect 19c upgrades. There …

In memory of Pieter Van Puymbroeck

Posted on July 20, 2021 by Mike.Dietrich Off Topic 12

In Memory of Pieter van Puymbroeck

Dear Pieter,

I’m still in state of shock. When our dear friend Philippe called the other day around noon I knew suddenly that something terrible must have happened. I could hear it from Philippe’s voice immediately. Something was wrong. You passed away. Way too early. I still can’t believe it. I miss you.

I know you for many years now. Not as long as others. But long enough to call you a friend. We spent hours together at conferences where we often met. I remember so well when you arrived at breakfast at SlOUG in Portorož one morning complaining heavily

UNDO_RETENTION not inherited to PDBs anymore since 19.9.0

Posted on July 12, 2021 by Mike.Dietrich Behavior Change 2

Behavior changes introduced via a bug fix may not be something you like a lot. And thanks to Sreedhar from one of our most important customers I learned on the weekend: UNDO_RETENTION not inherited to PDBs anymore since 19.9.0.

UNDO_RETENTION not inherited to PDBs anymore since 19.9.0

Photo by Ben Wicks on Unsplash

What is happening before 19.9.0?

Until Oracle 19.8.0 you could change the UNDO_RETENTION in the CDB$ROOT, and it applied to all PDBs automatically. You may or may not have cared. But there are cases when you’d like to change an undo related parameter in the CDB$ROOT without its propagation into all PDBs.

This behavior …

aioug Webinar on July 2, 2021 – Release Model and Patching Strategy

Posted on July 1, 2021 by Mike.Dietrich Workshop 0

As you may have read already in my previous post, we will start into the July Online Summit for the aioug (All Indian Oracle User Group) this week. Roy Swonger, VP Database Upgrade, Utilities and Patching will present the aioug Webinar on July 2, 2021 – Release Model and Patching Strategy.

aioug Webinar on July 2, 2021 - Release Model and Patching Strategy

How to register?

Simply register yourself please with the following link:

Register here for:Release Model and Patching Strategy

When will it happen?

As you can see in the above picture, July 2, 2021 at 18:00h Indian Time – which converts to:

in other time zones.

Tell

aioug Webinar Series July 2021: Database Upgrade and Migrations

Posted on June 28, 2021 by Mike.Dietrich Workshop 0

Many people on the northern hemisphere will escape during July into the summer holidays. But we won’t. Instead, thanks to Sai Penumuru, we will give seven webinars for the aioug. And we are looking forward to talk to you soon at the aioug Webinar Series July 2021: Database Upgrade and Migrations.

aioug Webinar Series July 2021: Database Upgrade and Migrations

When will it happen?

This morning I looked into my calendar. And I realized: Wow, July 2021 is just a few days away. Roy will start with the first session on Friday, July 2. And then myself, Rodrigo, Daniel, Fred and Bill will …

AutoUpgrade may run into a timeout when GI is lower than 19.10.0

Posted on June 21, 2021 by Mike.Dietrich ASM / RAC / GI Patch Recommendation 2

The other day I received a question from a colleague about the risk of having GI and database both not being on the same RU. And a long while ago I blogged about it. We recommend that you keep it in synch. But you don’t have to. At the same time I received a wish from Ernst Leber to post something on the blog he and his colleague had trouble with when upgrading to 19c in a RAC environment. AutoUpgrade hung. But he titled his email with “not an AutoUpgrade problem!”. Still I agree, it is worth to write …

Upgrade to Oracle 19c on Exadata with AutoUpgrade

Posted on June 16, 2021 by Mike.Dietrich Exadata / ODA Oracle Database 19c 17

This will be a short but very important blog post for those of you with Exadata systems. Then you should Upgrade to Oracle 19c on Exadata with AutoUpgrade.

Upgrade to Oracle 19c on Exadata with AutoUpgrade

Photo by Lindsay Henwood on Unsplash

Why is this important?

Until a week ago, the database upgrade MyOracle Support (MOS) note showed the process using the DBUA. And we had plenty of customers asking us why AutoUpgrade isn’t mentioned there. Our team worked already with some of you, and we knew that AutoUpgrade works perfectly fine and takes over some manual actions.

But our MAA team wanted a perfect solution. They …

Bug Fixing Support for Oracle 18c ends June 30, 2021

Posted on June 10, 2021 by Mike.Dietrich Oracle Database 18c Release Schedule 0

Time flies so quickly. I remember when we had intense discussions with a very large automotive customer whether they should use Oracle 18c, or rather wait for Oracle 19c. They went straight to Oracle 19c. But I know that many customers out there are still on Oracle 18c. So this date coming up in less than 3 weeks is very important for you. Bug Fixing Support for Oracle 18c ends June 30, 2021.

Bug Fixing Support for Oracle 18c ends June 30, 2021

Photo by Joshua Hoehne on Unsplash

Oracle Database 18c

I quickly checked on my blog. On March 20, 2018 I wrote When will Oracle Database 18c …

Welcome onboard at Oracle: Rodrigo Jorge

Posted on June 8, 2021 by Mike.Dietrich General 3

We are thrilled to announce that as of June 7, 2021 we have a new member in our Product Management team: Rodrigo Jorge joins our group as Product Manager for Database Cloud Migrations, Upgrade and Patching. Many of you may know Rodrigo already. He “was” an Oracle ACE Director until June 6, presented at many conferences and user group events – and he has an excellent technical blog. We are really excited to welcome Rodrigo at Oracle.

Welcome onboard at Oracle: Rodrigo Jorge

Photo by Raphael Nogueira on Unsplash

Who is Rodrigo?

Rodrigo is joining us from Accenture / Enkitec. He’s very well known in

Unplug / Plug / Upgrade with AutoUpgrade

Posted on June 7, 2021 by Mike.Dietrich Single-/Multitenant 9

When we launched AutoUpgrade, it could upgrade non-CDBs and CDBs with all PDBs. Soon after, it learned to upgrade a non-CDB and plug it into an existing CDB as a new PDB. And then, as next step, we added Unplug / Plug / Upgrade with AutoUpgrade. In this case you have a PDB (or hopefully more than one), and you’d like to upgrade one or many PDBs by moving them to a new CDB with a higher database version.

Unplug / Plug / Upgrade with AutoUpgrade

Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

Test Setup

As test setup I use our Hands-On Lab.

I will …

Some very important MOS Notes when you upgrade and patch

Posted on May 27, 2021 by Mike.Dietrich Patch Recommendation 10

Today, I would like to publish only a short blog post with some hints to MyOracle Support (MOS) notes we find quite helpful. The idea of all these notes I will list below is to help you finding the right patches before you upgrade or patch to Oracle 19c. So see our collection of Some very important MOS Notes when you upgrade and patch below.

Some very important MOS Note when you upgrade and patch

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Why do you need patch bundles?

At first, it is always our recommendation to upgrade to the most recent Release Update (RU). This is currently Oracle 19.11.0 while I’m …

This MOS note is not available anymore??!?

Posted on May 25, 2021 by Mike.Dietrich MyOracle Support 5

Let me craft a very short Tuesday evening blog post as this happened quite often to me. We promote a MOS note, either via our blogs or in our Virtual Classroom seminars and workshops. And when you try to access it, the note is gone. Plus, MyOracle Support (MOS) gives you no indication why it has disappeared or what has happened.

This MOS note is not available anymore??!?

Photo by Wesley Tingey on Unsplash

One of the many cases …

Chris commented on the blog here saying:

Hello Mike,

Unfortunately document “MOS Note: 2720807.1 – Oracle Database 19c Important Recommended One-off Patches” is not available anymore as

Messaging Gateway – Upgrade can’t find mgwu122.sql

Posted on May 21, 2021 by Mike.Dietrich Flaws and Pitfalls Oracle Database 18c Oracle Database 19c 2

Thanks to Christian Ballweg from Optiz Consulting who brought this issue to my attention. I haven’t seen it before since I haven’t installed it but you may encounter this if you have the Messaging Gateway – Upgrade can’t find mgwu122.sql.

Messaging Gateway - Upgrade can't find mgwu122.sql

Photo by Olav Ahrens Røtne on Unsplash

What is the Messaging Gateway?

Actually I steal this from the documentation:

Messaging Gateway enables communication between applications based on non-Oracle messaging systems and Oracle Database Advanced Queuing.

Oracle Database Advanced Queuing provides propagation between two Oracle Database Advanced Queuing queues to enable e-business (HTTP through IDAP). Messaging Gateway extends

ORA-1422 and ORA-6512 from SYS.DBMS_STATS in Post Upgrade

Posted on May 4, 2021 by Mike.Dietrich Optimizer Patch Recommendation 3

Ernst Leber sent me an email today. He hit an error at a customer upgrading to Oracle 19.9.0 on Exadata with AutoUpgrade. ORA-1422 and ORA-6512 from SYS.DBMS_STATS in Post Upgrade were signaled – and he better flashed back to the Guaranteed Restore Point. He found even a MOS note but still had questions. So time to blog about it in case you hit this error sequence as well.

ORA-1422 and ORA-6512 from SYS.DBMS_STATS in Post Upgrade Phase

Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

What happens, and when does it happen?

At first, this is not an AutoUpgrade issue. You may see the same error stack in the post upgrade …

Why do you need a password to download older patch bundles?

Posted on May 3, 2021 by Mike.Dietrich Patch Recommendation 6

A customer raised this question recently: Why do you need a password to download older patch bundles? The customer wanted to download a PSU from July 2020 on the MyOracle Support (MOS) platform but this wasn’t possible without a password.

Photo by Privecstasy on Unsplash

Why is there an extra password required?

In MOS Note: 888.1 – Master Note for Database Proactive Patch Program we documented the following:

1.4 Policy to obtain older Oracle Database Bundles, Updates & Revisions

Through our review of customer Service Requests (SRs), we find that customers frequently run into issues because they have unknowingly downloaded

New parameters and features in Oracle Database 19.11.0

Posted on April 26, 2021 by Mike.Dietrich Behavior Change Patch Recommendation 4

As usual, as soon as I apply the newest RU, I do also a quick check for New parameters and defaults in Oracle Database 19.11.0.

New parameters and features in Oracle Database 19.11.0

Photo by Roma Kaiuk on Unsplash

New Parameters in Oracle 19.11.0

Based on customer feedback, there is one really big improvement since this RU release. Not only new features but also parameter changes get listed. You will find them in the 19c New Features Guide.

In this RU you will find only 1 new parameter:

drcp_dedicated_opt
The description says “Turn on/off dedicated optimization for DRCP” – and the default is “YES

Oracle 19c Installation with 19.11.0 RU, OJVM and some other fixes

Posted on April 22, 2021 by Mike.Dietrich Installation Oracle Database 19c Patch Recommendation 18

In an previous blog post we showed how to install and patch in one single action. And as I use this technique all the time when I setup new homes, would like to show you an Oracle 19c Installation with 19.11.0 RU, OJVM and some other fixes. The purpose of this blog post is mainly to demonstrate again how you can install and patch in one action. But also to help you avoiding a pitfall when you apply the OJVM RU from April 2021.

Oracle 19c Installation with 19.11.0 RU, OJVM and some other fixes

Photo by Sammy Williams on Unsplash

What do we need?

At first, let us …

Patching all my environments with the April 2021 Patch Bundles

Posted on April 21, 2021 by Mike.Dietrich Patch Recommendation 54

Oh well, time flies. And it is April 2021, and hence I will start Patching all my environments with the April 2021 Patch Bundles. In my case, this will be 19.11.0 and 12.2.0.1 Release Updates. But there will be an additional blog post for the OJVM bundle, too.

Photo by Piron Guillaume 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…

Data Pump Super Patch for Oracle 19.10 and newer

Posted on April 15, 2021 by Mike.Dietrich Data Pump Patch Recommendation 44

Just a few days we released a Data Pump Super Patch for Oracle 19.10 and newer. “Newer” refers to the fact that once 19.11.0 will be available, this merge patch I’m writing about will be available as well right away (sorry, got delayed a bit). And if you work with Data Pump, you may want to consider this performance patch collection.

Photo by paolo candelo on Unsplash

Why do you need this patch?

Many customer will know the issue that adding changes with datapatch may take a long time as soon as dpload.sql is involved. And this …

Where are AutoUpgrade error codes documented?

Posted on April 12, 2021 by Mike.Dietrich AutoUpgrade 0

I know, I didn’t blog for a while due to seminar preparations and holidays. But as I’m going through the open comments on the blog trying to answer them, I came across a question regarding the strange UPG error codes, AutoUpgrade is printing sometimes. And of course, where are AutoUpgrade error codes documented?

Where are AutoUpgrade error codes documented?

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The UPG errors

Once AutoUpgrade hits an error condition, it prints an error code such as UPG-1400 or UPG-1303. And often, this error code is not very meaningful. In the comments section, somebody asked where to fine more information about these …

Oracle 19c on Windows may flood your trace file directory

Posted on March 11, 2021 by Mike.Dietrich Flaws and Pitfalls Oracle Database 19c 21

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

Photo by Daniel von Appen on Unsplash

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 21

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 5

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

Photo by Mael BALLAND on Unsplash

What happens?

Take …

Important Recommended Patches for Oracle Database 19c

Posted on February 23, 2021 by Mike.Dietrich Patch Recommendation 18

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.

Photo by Ani Kolleshi on Unsplash

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 …

How to download?

What is happening before 19.9.0?

How to register?

When will it happen?

Tell

When will it happen?

Why is this important?

Oracle Database 18c

Who is Rodrigo?

Test Setup

Why do you need patch bundles?

One of the many cases …

What is the Messaging Gateway?

What happens, and when does it happen?

Why is there an extra password required?

New Parameters in Oracle 19.11.0

What do we need?

Why do you need this patch?

The UPG errors

What happens?

What has been changed?

What happens?

What do you get?

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