Important Recommended Patches for Oracle Database 19c

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 Update (RU) since 19.4.0. This has now been changed because you shouldn’t be on 19.4.0 or 19.6.0 anymore. The note will contain the information for the past 4 RUs. This covers one year – and we are pretty certain that this should be fine.

When you access the note, you find a strange title (ignore that) but also – very important – a check box list on top:

Following a recent Twitter discussion I’d like to clarify that I’d like to explain that the sole idea of this note is to give you heads-up, especially when you are on an older RU about known issues. Ideally all of the listed issues get fixed in future RUs wherever possible. This is obviously the case when you click on 19.7 at first, then on 19.8. and so on. The list gets smaller and smaller. Simple reason: a lot of the issues we saw in 19.7. and 19.8 are fixed already in 19.10.0.

For instance, when you tick 19.7.0 at the moment while I write this you will get a list of 25 important one-off patches on top of 19.7.0:

And when you hit now the 19.10 filter option, you get a list of only 6 issues at the moment:

What you don’t get!

You won’t get a full list of existing issues. Let’s say, you are on 19.8.0 and you click the 19.8.0 filter button, then you won’t see all existing issues with 19.8.0. You will only get a list of IMPORTANT one-off fixes on top of 19.8.0. This is a curated and selected list based on the information our Sustaining Engineering team compiled together with Support. Markers such as “how often has an issue happened and been tagged with SRs” and “how critical is an issue” are the basis for the list. And of course also the availability of a one-off fix.

Do you have to install all of them?

Good question – and I’d say “No!”.

But you should browse through this list on a regular basis. This is why you should add this to your favorite notes. You can simply do this by clicking on the grey star in the upper left corner of the note – in my above screenshot it is yellow as I added it already. Afterwards you can easily navigate to it via the favorites bookmarks in MOS left of the SEARCH field:

This makes it much easier to find the note again.

Check it once per month ideally.

And I guess I don’t need to tell you that you should apply 19.10.0 RU.

Further Links and Information

• MOS Note: 2720807.1 – Oracle Database 19c Important Recommended One-off Patches
• Patching all my environments with the January 2021 Bundle Patches

–Mike