Flaws and Pitfalls

GI 19.31 and 19.32: trace file flooding in mgmtca.trc can happen

Thanks to Peter Lehmann who always alerts me about findings and encounters he had in his test and production RAC cluster environments. Peter dropped me an email the other day, and I share his suspicion that this may effect many in the coming weeks operating RAC environments. If you don’t have a RAC, you may not see this happening with GI 19.31 and 19.32: trace file flooding in mgmtca.trc can happen.

GI 19.31 and 19.32: trace file flooding in mgmtca.trc can happen

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What happens?

It took me a bit of searching, and Peter collected a lot of information already.

Two months after patching GI …

ORA-600 [] and ORA-8103 errors can happen after TTS Import into 19c

Posted on August 19, 2026 by Mike.Dietrich Flaws and Pitfalls Patch Recommendation Transportable 1

This is not a new finding – and it is a very rare error. But you may only find it days, months or even years after a TTS migration has been completed. You may see a rare corruption issue, and it may sleep in your database. The error pattern would be: ORA-600 [<objdchk>] and ORA-8103 errors can happen after TTS Import into 19c when you query certain data sets. A customer of ours has encountered this a two years after an xTTS migration in an archival database. And since my team works with a lot of large migrations, I think

Upgrade to 26ai may hang due to block checking events

Posted on July 15, 2026 by Mike.Dietrich AutoUpgrade Flaws and Pitfalls Oracle AI Database 26ai Patch Recommendation 0

This issue is caused by an internal change, and we hit this now with two very large customer upgrades recently. Therefore, I would like to point to a fix, a workaround and the following RU in case you see your Upgrade to 26ai may hang due to block checking events.

Upgrade to 26ai may hang due to block checking events

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What would you see?

This issue can happen with cloning, PDB refreshable clones or just a copy or restore of your database for the subsequent upgrade to Oracle AI Database 26ai. It is not dependent on AutoUpgrade but since AutoUpgrade is the only …

OJVM patching fails with ORA-1403 in 19.30 if JAVAVM is not installed

Posted on February 12, 2026 by Mike.Dietrich Flaws and Pitfalls JVM Patch Recommendation 106

Thanks to all the people (Jeff, Daniele, Lothar and others) who alerted me about this topic. Some of you had even created their own fix already. So, this is about an issue which happens only if you have no JAVAVM installed in your database or PDB but you still apply the OJVM Bundle on to of the Oracle Database 19.30 Release Update. You may find then: OJVM patching fails with ORA-1403 in 19.30 if JAVAVM is not installed.

OJVM patching fails with ORA-1403 in 19.30 if JVM is not installed

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When does this happen?

This issue happens when you apply the OJVM bundle together with …

What has happened to the 19.29 and 19.30 RUs?

Posted on February 9, 2026 by Mike.Dietrich Flaws and Pitfalls Oracle Database 19c Patch Recommendation 44

Many of you mailed us asking why AutoUpgrade does not download 19.29 or 19.30 RUs anymore. Others just noticed that the RUs got pulled without further communication visible. And a few people informed me about an issue with the 19.30 RU when you don’t have OJVM configured but install the OJVM bundle. So, what has happened to the 19.29 and 19.30 RUs??

What has happened to the 19.29 and 19.30 RUs?

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Release Update 19.29 and 19.30

A fix for Bug 34352668 – LNX64-23.1-RAC: SVCB HIT ORA-600 [KCBGTCR_17] has been included into RUs 19.29 and 19.30 but unfortunately it could potentially cause a regression…

DBMS_OPTIM_BUNDLE and the standby database?

Posted on April 30, 2025 by Mike.Dietrich Flaws and Pitfalls MAA Patch Recommendation 8

I could have sworn that I had blogged about it. Aleksey had a comment on the blog and I could not find the answer. But I knew that I had discussed this topic with several people in email already. Maybe it has fallen off my long list of future blog posts. No worries, here it is: DBMS_OPTIM_BUNDLE and the standby database?

DBMS_OPTIM_BUNDLE and the standby database?

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DBMS_OPTIM_BUNDLE – short recap

I have a longer list of DBMS_OPTIM_BUNDLE blog posts, and you can easily navigate to them here. In very short, you will use the package to enable potentially …

Small Pages not allowed for SGA from 19.27 and newer on Exadata

Posted on April 17, 2025 by Mike.Dietrich Behavior Change Exadata / ODA Flaws and Pitfalls 12

Having good friends in Oracle is key. And honestly one of the best things in my role. Philippe Fierens, product manager for Oracle’s Fleet Patching and Provisioning mailed me yesterday night sharing that there is an interesting change coming with Database Release Update 19.27: Small Pages not allowed for SGA from 19.27 and newer on Exadata.

Small Pages not allowed for SGA from 19.27 and newer on Exadata

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What does this mean?

As you can read in MOS Note: 3081878.1 – Starting DBRU 19.27 Small Pages Are Not Allowed for RDBMS SGA In Exadata, from Release Update 19.27 onward (this is the April 2025 …

ORA-12850 when you run AutoUpgrade?

Posted on March 13, 2025 by Mike.Dietrich AutoUpgrade Flaws and Pitfalls 1

Nicola made a comment the other day informing me that they hit an issue on some of their databases when upgrading. But is there a general issue with ORA-12850 when you run AutoUpgrade? Or is this error just the reflection of another issue? Let’s see, I will explain this and include a workaround as well.

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What is the problem?

Nicola traced it down mostly already. During the upgrade of their CDBs, this error happened in some runs:

with segments as (select /*+ MATERIALIZE PARALLEL(2) */ tablespace_name, inuse from( select ds.tablespace_name, row_number() over (partition by

Queries on dictionary tables are slow in Oracle Multitenant?

Posted on February 10, 2025 by Mike.Dietrich Flaws and Pitfalls Single-/Multitenant 12

I love to learn something new every day. And on Friday afternoon last week I learned something new again. It started (as often) with a very simple question from a colleague working from the Oracle Malaga office in Spain. The customer has an issues with some queries being slower than before once they moved from on-prem to the cloud into a PDB. But are queries on dictionary tables are slow in Oracle Multitenant generally?

Queries on dictionary tables are slow in Oracle Multitenant?

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What was the case?

The customer ran some queries against dictionary views in the PDB in Oracle Database …

Voodoo with init parameters and Oracle Restart

Posted on January 11, 2024 by Mike.Dietrich Flaws and Pitfalls Restart - SIHA - HAS 10

Uwe Kirchhoff, one of the best techies I know in the entire Oracle CSS (formerly ACS) Support, mailed me before the Christmas holidays with a simple question. He discovered that altering init.ora parameters in a session does not necessarily write the parameter down into the spfile. Sounds a bit like Voodoo with init parameters, and Oracle Restart has a role in this story as well. If you don’t have or do not plan to use Oracle Restart, then this is not interesting for you. But of course, you are free to still read it 🙂

Voodoo with init parameters and Oracle Restart

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Datapatch may be slower when Traditional and Unified Auditing are on

Posted on April 11, 2023 by Mike.Dietrich Auditing Flaws and Pitfalls 7

I wrote several times especially about Unified Auditing in the past. It is a very efficient and useful way to audit operations in the database. But you need to be a bit careful about what’s on, and what isn’t. Now we recently had a customer case where it was clearly proven that Datapatch may be slower when Traditional and Unified Auditing are on. But how can this happen?

Datapatch may be slower when Traditional and Unified Auditing are on

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Recapping Traditional Auditing

At first, I am neither a security not an auditing expert. But I played quite a bit with Unified Auditing over the …

Oracle Optimizer Statistics Advisor in Oracle 19c

Posted on February 28, 2023 by Mike.Dietrich Flaws and Pitfalls Optimizer Patch Recommendation 22

Christian Pfundtner pointed me to the fact that my old blog post about the Statistics Advisor from 2017 may not be up to date anymore. And he further pointed out that some of his clients still suffer from issues with the tool. Hence, let me refresh the topic with Oracle Optimizer Statistics Advisor in Oracle 19c. And thanks to Christian for the pointers.

Oracle Optimizer Statistics Advisor in Oracle 19c

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Overview

At first, I won’t rewrite the entire blog post but instead focus on recent findings. Therefore, you may please want to read my previous blog post about the …

ORA-13516 “CATPROC not valid” during datapatch or autoupgrade to 19.18.0

Posted on February 24, 2023 by Mike.Dietrich Flaws and Pitfalls Patch Recommendation 18

I thought I could relax this week using my leftover vacation days from 2022. But this issue is triggering me since some of you mailed me already. Maybe this blog post can prevent others from being trapped by this issue: ORA-13516 “CATPROC not valid” during datapatch or autoupgrade to 19.18.0. And as a prolog, you will NOT see the below issue when you started your database in NORMAL mode for the execution of datapatch.

ORA-13516 "CATPROC not valid" during datapatch or autoupgrade to 19.18.0

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What is the symptom?

Regardless of whether you patch to Oracle Database RU 19.18.0 manually or with …

Hide and Seek with RU 19.18.0

Posted on February 2, 2023 by Mike.Dietrich Flaws and Pitfalls Patch Recommendation 46

One and a half weeks ago we released the Database and Grid Infrastructure Release Updates (RU) 19.18.0. You could read on the blog how to apply it, and you could read also about an alert. So far, all was more or less transparent but apparently sort of an Hide and Seek with RU 19.18.0 has happened. So let me shed some light.

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Heads Up!

I am just the messenger trying to bring some light into the topic. Neither is our team responsible nor do we have any sort of control on this process. I …

Suppress nasty error messages and traces during datapatch

Posted on January 31, 2023 by Mike.Dietrich Flaws and Pitfalls Patch Recommendation 5

A few days ago I published my quarterly blog post in the series of Patching all my environments … And I mentioned that datapatch took a bit longer for 19.18.0 than usual. In the alert I’ve had nasty error messages or warnings. And Walter (thanks!) commented immediately with some advice.

Suppress nasty error messages and traces during datapatch

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What are these messages?

Actually, I saw them before already. Since I always create CUSTOM databases with a template I spotted those warnings the first time when I was wondering why DB creation took so abnormally long with Multitenant. I discovered KGL Heap …

MRP3 for Oracle 19.17.0 adds an interesting surprise

Posted on January 30, 2023 by Mike.Dietrich Flaws and Pitfalls Patch Recommendation 9

You may have read my previous blog posts about MRPs (Monthly Recommended Patches). And today I did a quick check with Rodrigo. We both were a bit surprised to have the MRP3 for 19.17.0 add a lot of fixes to a standard RDBMS installation. So we were investigating a bit further. As a teaser, read on to see that MRP3 for Oracle 19.17.0 adds an interesting surprise.

MRP3 for Oracle 19.17.0 adds an interesting surprise

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How did we find out?

The MRP3 for Oracle Database 19.17.0 got released just a week ago. You can navigate to it via MOS …

Important alert for Oracle Database and GI RU 19.18.0 on Linux

Posted on January 25, 2023 by Mike.Dietrich Flaws and Pitfalls Patch Recommendation 59

Some of you may have seen the alert already released yesterday. And thanks to Peter Lehmann again for alerting me. When you logon to MyOracle Support, you will find it simply in the alert section to the left. On Jan 25, 2023, this Important alert for Oracle Database and GI RU 19.18.0 on Linux has been released.

Important alert for Oracle Database and GI RU 19.18.0 on Linux

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What is the situation?

Due to an issue described in MOS Note: 2923428.1 – LMON trace file with repeated entries of “Submitting asynchronized dump request” the Release Updates (RU) 19.18.0 for the Oracle Database and …

Rolling back or removing all patch SQL changes

Posted on January 20, 2023 by Mike.Dietrich Flaws and Pitfalls Microsoft Windows Single-/Multitenant 4

This is quite an interesting case I’ve had to scratch my head at first as well. Magnus mailed me the other day asking for a client since the PDB compatibility check errored out with a patch conflict. We discussed the topic but the most easiest workaround to me was Rolling back or removing all patch SQL changes from the PDB before unplug. And since I had to look up the command I’d rather put it on the blog in case you or I need it again one day.

Rolling back or removing all patch SQL changes

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What is the case?

I …

Upgrade from 11.2.0.4 to 19c with Label Security Policies

Posted on July 6, 2022 by Mike.Dietrich Flaws and Pitfalls 5

I remember, I have a blog. Forgive me that I don’t write a lot at the moment even though I still have a long queue of “future posts to write”. It is just too busy, and I was away for almost two full weeks in June as well. But let me briefly drop information on an issue I learned about recently. It just affects your when Upgrade from 11.2.0.4 to 19c with Label Security Policies. All other readers may simply ignore this blog post.

Upgrade from 11.2.0.4 to 19c with Label Security Policies

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What happens?

You are using Oracle Label Security, and …

Upgrading a PDB with JVM may result in ORA-7445 joevm_invokevirtual

Posted on September 29, 2021 by Mike.Dietrich Flaws and Pitfalls JVM 3

As you know, this blog is also my brain dump about Oracle topics. Since this one happened yesterday, mostly at night with the help of my team mates and the Java team, I’d like to write it down into this blog post: Upgrading a PDB with Java may result in ORA-7445 joevm_invokevirtual() as it is still fresh and may affect you as well. If you don’t have PDBs, if you don’t have Java (or JVM) in it or if you upgraded already to Oracle Database 19c, you can stop reading now.

Upgrading a PDB with Java may result in ORA-7445 joevm_invokevirtual

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What

Pitfall: Upgrade to 21c fails when ORDIM is present but no SDO

Posted on August 25, 2021 by Mike.Dietrich Flaws and Pitfalls Oracle Database 21c Upgrade / Migration 4

You may have read my previous blog post about Upgrading a non-CDB to Oracle Database 21c. And I referred to a potential Pitfall: Upgrade to 21c fails when ORDIM is present but no SDO. In this blog post I would like to explain how to avoid this pitfall beforehand and explain what needs to be done.

Pitfall: Upgrade to 21c fails when ORDIM is present but no SDO

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What’s the problem?

In my previous blog post I showed you the ideal and normal way. But during my tests I came across an issue I was not aware of – and I simply had no …

DBMS_OPTIM_BUNDLE and Out-Of-Place Patching

Posted on August 12, 2021 by Mike.Dietrich Flaws and Pitfalls Optimizer Patch Recommendation 10

Well, you see, this is most likely my special DBMS_OPTIM_BUNDLE week. And since I receive quite a number of questions, it may be good to discuss here about DBMS_OPTIM_BUNDLE and Out-Of-Place Patching?

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Out-of-place Patching

When you patch out-of-place with a new home – which is clearly our recommendation – you may see another tiny pitfall with DBMS_OPTIM_BUNDLE.

When you check DBA_DIRECTORIES, you will find two directories being related to DBMS_OPTIM_BUNDLE.

SQL> select directory_name, directory_path from dba_directories where directory_name like '%OPTIM%'

DIRECTORY_NAME	     DIRECTORY_PATH
-------------------- --------------------------------------------------
DBMS_OPTIM_LOGDIR    /u01/app/oracle/product/19/cfgtoollogs
DBMS_OPTIM_ADMINDIR  /u01/app/oracle/product/19/rdbms/admin

You see the “19” in the …

After patching, Spatial Index creation fails with ORA-13249

Posted on August 4, 2021 by Mike.Dietrich Flaws and Pitfalls 11

Thanks again to Peter Lehmann from T-Systems for highlighting this issue to me. After patching, Spatial Index creation fails with ORA-13249. And Peter’s customer was quite worried. But see what may have caused this, and how we fixed it.

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What happened?

Peter patched a system from 19.10.0 to 19.11.0. This database has undergone an upgrade from 12.2.0.1 to 19.7.0 before, then got patched to 19.9.0 before. The database has the Oracle Locator only but no Spatial installed. The patching including datapatch worked fine. All seemed to be good. Until the customer tried to …

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 6

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

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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

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

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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 …

Flaws and Pitfalls

What happens?

What would you see?

When does this happen?

Release Update 19.29 and 19.30

DBMS_OPTIM_BUNDLE – short recap

What does this mean?

What is the problem?

What was the case?

Recapping Traditional Auditing

Overview

What is the symptom?

Heads Up!

What are these messages?

How did we find out?

What is the situation?

What is the case?

What happens?

What

What’s the problem?

Out-of-place Patching

What happened?

What is the Messaging Gateway?

What happens?

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