The February 2026 release of AutoUpgrade (26.2) is available

This is a ground-breaking new release of AutoUpgrade, and the team worked hard to release it last weekend. This means for you that you should renew your AutoUpgrade tools as The February 2026 release of AutoUpgrade (26.2) is available now for download.

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In case you wonder about this cryptic headline, no worries. a customer highlighted this well-chosen and easy-to-remember number to me the other day. And I was not aware, but it is true: KB123450 is the MOS note allowing you to download AutoUpgrade from MOS. Awesome … I already programmed this into my finger muscles without thinking for a second 🙂

And most of you know that you can also fetch it without login from oracle.com/goto/upgrade by clicking on the big black button or with a curl or wget directly.

Ground-breaking new features

When you check the change log, those awesome new features will jump into your eye.

1. Let AutoUpgrade build your Gold Image using the Oracle Upgrade Advisor
2. Use AutoUpgrade for an entirely RAC rolling patching operation in your RAC environment
3. AutoUpgrade auto-updates itself

Before I list the entire feature and fix list, let me explain a bit more about those new features since this is the most important release of AutoUpgrade in more than 1 year. And we all really love those features – as you will for sure, too, soon!

1. Gold Images from the Oracle Update Advisor service

   The Oracle Update Advisor (OUA) is not very well known yet. But it allows you to either download Gold Images (if they exist already) or – even better – have your own Gold Image custom-built. AutoUpgrade to my knowledge is the first tool which fully supports this for Oracle Database 19c and 26ai. And the benefit in 19c on the side is that it will then include the base release as well which otherwise you would need to download separately.

   Now, if you are going to try this out, this blog post by my team mate Rodrigo Jorge is an absolute MUST:
   https://www.dbarj.com.br/en/2026/02/downloading-and-using-gold-image-with-autoupgrade/

   In order to use this service, you need to pass on your CSI into AutoUpgrade’s SEPS (Secure External Password Store) where you already stored your MOS credential in it. As said about. Rodrigo Jorge shows you all the steps to try it out in Download And Using Gold Images with AutoUpgrade article.

   I am totally excited about this feature, and how AutoUpgrade makes it easy to use it. Regardless whether you download a prebuilt image, or your own customized gold image (which then obviously takes longer since we are going to build it for you individually).

   Since questions came up already, you don’t have to add your CSI. This is only needed when you want to download Gold Images. All other features work as before. What you may want to add to NOT use Gold Images, is the AU parameter gold_image=no since this defaults to AUTO.

2. RAC Rolling Patching

   If the Gold Image build service wouldn’t be enough, there is more in the AutoUpgrade 26.2 version. It fully supports now RAC Rolling patching. In case you’d ask now: Didn’t you guys support RAC patching before? We did, indeed. But we were using the AutoUpgrade framework. And it simply did restart the database – exactly what you do not want to see when you patch “rolling”.

   And this is exactly what we support now with prefix.rac_rolling as a new parameter. AutoUpgrade is now able to patch your RAC databases completely rolling. Of course, you can also built your database homes with AutoUpgrade, too, But there is so much more. You can configure the prefix.drain_timeout and a lot more. I know, some of you are going to try this out right away, and Rodrigo has spent a lot of time the past days to release blog posts for the new features – truly a MUST READ:

   1. RAC Rolling Mode in AutoUpgrade
   2. How to patch the Oracle database using controlled RAC Rolling with AutoUpgrade

3. AutoUpgrade auto-updates itself

   And finally, something we wished for already for some time. AutoUpgrade checks the version you are using to download the software and patches, and in case there is a newer AutoUpgrade version available, it simply updates itself. The only task you have is using the newest version then for all subsequent activities. There is nothing required to trigger this cool feature – it just does it for you.

Ah, before I forget, you can now download also the SDO (Spatial Patch Bundles) and the TEXT Bundles directly with just a keyword. A DBA’s life is getting so much more easier with AutoUpgrade. We all are super-proud on our Upgrade Development team.

Features, enhancements and fixes in 26.1 and 26.2

This is the list of features, checks, enhancements and fixes in the AutoUpgrade 26.1 and 26.2 versions.

New Features

New Checks

Enhancements

Change in behavior

Bugs

REST API

None

Fix for the 19.30 download issue

In case you wonder about 26.2 instead of 26.1, the reason for the recut had to do indirectly with the recut of the 19.30 RU. When the 19.30 RU got re-released under 19.30 again but with a change (as you can read in more detail here), it also received an unusual name:

Patch 38632161: DATABASE RELEASE UPDATE 19.30.0.0.0(REL-JAN260130)

The part in the brackets broke AutoUpgrade’s mechanism to detect the correct patch. Those of you who explicitly wanted to download patch=RU:19.30 received an error, those who used patch=RECOMMENDED or patch=RU got 19.28 instead of 19.30 since 19.29 is password protected, and then AutoUpgrade fetches the newest available RU – which in this particular case with the known naming of RUs had been 19.28. The team worked hard to deliver an emergency fix on the weekend, and the 26.2 release of AutoUpgrade is able to download the RU 19.30 now without any further issues.

Further Links and Information

• (KB123450) AutoUpgrade Tool
• Oracle Update Advisor
• Download and using Gold Images with AutoUpgrade
• RAC Rolling Mode in AutoUpgrade
• How to patch the Oracle database using controlled RAC Rolling with AutoUpgrade

–Mike