This question was in my inbox this morning raised by a customer via a colleague.

“Can I apply a BP on top of a PSU? Or vice versa?”

Our feeling said:
Yes, but you’ll have to deinstall the PSU first before applying the BP.

Having a feeling is one thing, knowing the truth is better. And as I have so much fun by applying PSUs and BPs back and forth since two weeks I thought “let’s give it a try”. So here we go …

Apply a BP on top of a PSU

This is my starting point – Oracle Database 12.1.0.2 with PSU October 2015, the last state in my VBox environment since I experiment with parameters and packages at the moment.

And this is the result when trying to apply the BP from April 2016 on top:

[CDB2] oracle@localhost:/media/sf_CTEMP/22899531/22899531/22806133
$ opatch apply
Oracle Interim Patch Installer version 12.1.0.1.10
Copyright (c) 2016, Oracle Corporation.  All rights reserved.


Oracle Home       : /u01/app/oracle/product/12.1.0.2
Central Inventory : /u01/app/oraInventory
   from           : /u01/app/oracle/product/12.1.0.2/oraInst.loc
OPatch version    : 12.1.0.1.10
OUI version       : 12.1.0.2.0
Log file location : /u01/app/oracle/product/12.1.0.2/cfgtoollogs/opatch/opatch2016-05-03_10-26-37AM_1.log

Verifying environment and performing prerequisite checks...

Conflicts/Supersets for each patch are:

Sub-Patch : 20243804

        Bug Conflict with Sub-Patch 21359755
        Conflicting bugs are:
        18966843, 19468991, 19032777, 19587324

[..]


Following patches have conflicts: [   21359755   22806133 ]
Refer to My Oracle Support Note 1299688.1 for instructions on resolving patch conflicts.

UtilSession failed: Patch 21359755 is a composite patch which could not be rollback.

Log file location: /u01/app/oracle/product/12.1.0.2/cfgtoollogs/opatch/opatch2016-05-03_10-26-37AM_1.log

OPatch failed with error code 73

Ok, our suspicion was correct.

There are a lot of conflicts – I have to remove the PSU first. And of course the recommended conflict check would have given me the same result. Furthermore I think I have read this a while back in one of the central notes about PSUs and BPs in MOS as well.

Removing the PSU from October 2015 first

Removing a PSU or BP is very simple and straight forward (and well described in the ReadMe.html coming coming with the patch).

[CDB2] oracle@localhost:/media/sf_CTEMP/21359755/21359755
$ opatch rollback -id 21359755
Oracle Interim Patch Installer version 12.1.0.1.10
Copyright (c) 2016, Oracle Corporation.  All rights reserved.

Oracle Home       : /u01/app/oracle/product/12.1.0.2
Central Inventory : /u01/app/oraInventory
   from           : /u01/app/oracle/product/12.1.0.2/oraInst.loc
OPatch version    : 12.1.0.1.10
OUI version       : 12.1.0.2.0

Log file location : /u01/app/oracle/product/12.1.0.2/cfgtoollogs/opatch/21359755_May_03_2016_10_41_54/rollback2016-05-03_10-41-54AM_1.log

Patches will be rolled back in the following order:
   21359755   20831110   20299023   19769480
The following patch(es) will be rolled back: 21359755  20831110  20299023  19769480
Sub-patches of a composite series are being rolled back. The system will be returned to a state where all subpatches are rolled back.

[..]

Please shutdown Oracle instances running out of this ORACLE_HOME on the local system.
(Oracle Home = '/u01/app/oracle/product/12.1.0.2')

Is the local system ready for patching? [y|n]
y

User Responded with: Y
Rolling back patch 21359755...

[..]

RollbackSession removing interim patch '19769480' from inventory Log file location: /u01/app/oracle/product/12.1.0.2/cfgtoollogs/opatch/21359755_May_03_2016_10_41_54/rollback2016-05-03_10-41-54AM_1.log OPatch succeeded.

Afterwards please make sure to run ./datapatch -verbose to rollback the SQL changes as explained in section 4 of the README.html (and of course all other steps mentioned there).

Apply the BP from April 2016

I don’t want to repeat myself as I wrote already about this positive experience a few days ago:

Oracle Database BP April16 applied successfully

I continued this blog post on a later occasion here:

Can I apply a BP on top of a PSU? Or vice versa? PART 2

Further Information?

You’ll find recent related postings on this blog here:

• Can I apply a BP on top of a PSU? Or vice versa? (May 3, 2016)
• Oracle April 2016 PSU and Proactive BPs are there (Apr 21, 2016)
• Oracle Database BP April 2016 applied successfully (Apr 21, 2016)
• MOS Note 1454618.1: Quick Reference to Database PSUs, CPUs, BPs and Patchsets (Apr 26, 2016).

–Mike