I’ve had a week off and tried to relax and stay away from work topics (which worked quite well this time). The downside is 300+ emails in the inbox. And I spotted several ones already asking: Why is the 19.9.0 Release Update not available yet for MY platform?
Photo by AZGAN MjESHTRI on Unsplash
Details for Patch 123456789 not found.
At first, this is not a uncommon question. And the root cause is two-fold. As you know from my quarterly blog posts such as Patching all my environments with the October 2020 Patch Bundles, these notes are important:
- MOS Note: 2694898.1 – Critical Patch Update (CPU) Program Oct 2020 Patch Availability Document (PAD)
- MOS Note: 2664876.1 – Critical Patch Update (CPU) Program Jul 2020 Patch Availability Document (PAD)
- MOS Note: 2633852.1 – Critical Patch Update (CPU) Program Apr 2020 Patch Availability Document
- etc
You find the links to the patch bundles in them.
But when you spot yours, for instance 19.9.0 for MS Windows:
- Microsoft Windows 32-Bit and x86-64 BP 19.9.0.0.201020 Patch 31719903, or later;
and you click on the link, it gives you this error:
“Details for Patch 31719903 not found” may be technically correct – but is VERY misleading. It means that there is no such patch yet. And it doesn’t tell you whether the link is incorrect or the patch number or if the upload has been removed or of the patch is simply not there yet.
So at this point you are stuck as MOS doesn’t tell you that the patch isn’t simply available yet. And even worse, it doesn’t tell you when the patch is supposed to be available.
When will your patch available?
The “secret” is on the PAD (Patch Availability Document) note, for instance in:
- MOS Note: 2694898.1 – Critical Patch Update (CPU) Program Oct 2020 Patch Availability Document (PAD)
Go to section 2.2 Post Release Patches within MOS Note: 2694898.1 where it says:
Oracle strives to complete preparations and testing of each Quarterly Security Patch for each platform by the quarterly release date. Occasionally, circumstances beyond our control dictate that a particular patch be delayed and be released a few days after the quarterly release date. The following table lists any current patch delays and the estimated date of availability.
Now let us look for the Windows BPs (as there are magically not named RUs):
ETA (“estimated time of arrival” I’d guess) in this case is Nov 13, 2020. Now as some of you experienced already, this date may slip. For instance, in previous bundles there were issues with the JDK packaged to it. But those were just detected during the regression testing. Hence, the release got delayed. Normally I can’t tell you why a patch bundle has been delayed. I only can tell you what the MOS note says.
A potential solution?
Well, in an ideal world, all quarterly patch bundles would be published exactly on the Tuesday closest to the middle of the month in January, April, July and October. This would be perfect. But if we’d have no links added for the patches not being published yet, this would introduce a lot of potential error as those links need to be added on a day-by-day basis.
I’d rather think that a simple color code for patches not being available yet would make it easier. And I agree with those of you questioning the misleading error message on MOS.
Summary
If you miss YOUR quarterly patch bundle, please always check section 2.2 Post Release Patches in the quarterly PAD note. Or you check this section at first to find out whether the bundle you are looking for is available already. Or if it isn’t, when it will be available.
I can’t tell you the reason why a bundle you are looking for is not available yet. You may need to check with Oracle Support – but I guess that even Support engineers can tell you only the estimated data of arrival but they have no control on it either.
Further Links and Information
- Patching all my environments with the October 2020 Patch Bundles
- MOS Note: 2694898.1 – Critical Patch Update (CPU) Program Oct 2020 Patch Availability Document (PAD)
–Mike
