Patch Recommendation

Simple database installation with applyRU and applyOneOffs

Some of you may remember my blog post from April 22, 2021 about issues I saw with the unattended installation using applyRU and applyOneOffs switches. The installation failed with a strange jox error when I passed on the OJVM bundle to my installation queue. But there is relief – finally, after almost one year. So let me give you some background, and of course show you the workaround for the Simple database installation with applyRU and applyOneOffs.

Simple database installation with applyRU and applyOneOffs

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What has happened?

A longer while ago, we introduced the very convenient ability to install patches …

Binary patching is slow because of the inventory

Posted on May 10, 2022 by Mike.Dietrich Patch Recommendation 52

The headline of this blog post may sound a bit cryptic: Binary patching is slow because of the inventory. But actually this seems to be one of the main causes when your binary patching gets slower and slower with every patch you apply.

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The more you patch, the worse it gets

Well, this is a tough headline. But you may have read my blog posts about my quarterly patching experience. It actually started with the July 2021 RU in my 19c environment when I wrote:

At least in my environment, both checks with the

How to speed up your database and GI patching

Posted on May 9, 2022 by Mike.Dietrich Patch Recommendation 12

Several of you mailed me already and commented. And I know that I promised this blog post for weeks, if not longer. So let me try to explain How to speed up your database and GI patching. Since this blog post has a longer history, I’d say far over 6 months, it will be a bit longer than the usual posts. At when I started writing it, I decided to split it up into several pieces to make it more digestible but also to allow easier finding of certain topics. I hope it may help easing some recent patching …

Patching all my environments with the April 2022 Patch Bundles

Posted on April 25, 2022 by Mike.Dietrich Patch Recommendation 37

Easter time is patching time. And since I was hiking and biking every day the last week up in the Northern Italian mountains, this blog post is coming with a slight delay. But better late than never. Time to show you my usual exercise, this time Patching all my environments with the April 2022 Patch Bundles.

Patching all my environments with the April 2022 Patch Bundles

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As usual, an important annotation upfront: I patch in-place due to space issues. But in reality, you please patch always out-of-place with a separate home. Please see this blog post about how to apply the RU …

What does datapatch do when you have different components in PDBs?

Posted on February 9, 2022 by Mike.Dietrich Patch Recommendation 10

The last weeks, literally weeks, I have spent a lot of time with several patching topics. And in order to clean up my inbox a bit I will dump the learning into several blog posts. This one today will be about an interesting case I came across when a customer ran into problems with the runtime of datapatch in an ExaCC environment. Hence, today’s topic will be: What does datapatch do when you have different components in PDBs?

What does datapatch do when you have different components in PDBs?

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Annotation

If you are on 19.16.0 or higher, than you can safely ignore this blog post …

Adding the Oracle 19.14.0 OCW / GI bundle patch to my database home

Posted on February 7, 2022 by Mike.Dietrich Patch Recommendation 10

Actually I planned for a different blog post this morning. But since I have a backlog of unanswered comments accumulated I came across this interesting question from Pedro. He wanted to know how he can patch the OCW component in his database home. So I thought I will show you the process of Adding the Oracle 19.14.0 OCW / GI bundle patch to my database home.

Adding the Oracle 19.14.0 OCW / GI bundle patch to my database home

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Is this necessary?

That’s a good question for a Monday morning. I think: No, that isn’t necessary for a “Database only” home where you don’t have or …

Some additional information regarding the Oracle 19.14.0 RUs

Posted on January 27, 2022 by Mike.Dietrich Patch Recommendation 27

You may have read my previous blog post about patching all my environments to the January 2022 patch bundles. But since I do this in a very simple non-RAC, non-GI environment, I may not see issues you may have encountered. Some people commented – and I would like to share Some additional information regarding the Oracle 19.14.0 RUs . Still, please, this is NOT a collection of all open issues. I just see this blog post as a summary of the issues I have seen and/or heard about so far.

Some additional information regarding the Oracle 19.14.0 RUs

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555.1 is one

Can I cleanup the previous Patch Bundles with opatch?

Posted on January 21, 2022 by Mike.Dietrich Best Practice Patch Recommendation 36

Today I will step on mined territory. Can I cleanup the previous Patch Bundles with opatch? Or can I just wipe out the old ones? That is a question which will bring people with temper quickly close to explosion. But let me start step by step, especially for those of you who aren’t familiar with this topic.

The secret directories

You L O V E secrets, don’t you? No? Well … then let me start with a secret which isn’t a secret to most people making it even more obscure.

When you install a patch with opatch or opatchauto, …

Patching all my environments with the January 2022 Patch Bundles

Posted on January 20, 2022 by Mike.Dietrich Patch Recommendation 60

It’s patching time. When I checked an SR and had a quick discussion with a customer yesterday, Peter reminded me that it’s patching day. And at about 20:00h CET the new patch bundles appeared on MOS. So let me show you again Patching all my environments with the January 2022 Patch Bundles for 11.2.0.4, 12.2.0.1, 19c and 21c.

Patching all my environments with the January 2022 Patch Bundles

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Patching all my environments with the October 2021 Patch Bundles

Posted on December 16, 2021 by Mike.Dietrich Patch Recommendation 20

My calendar has no error or NLS conversion issue – I was just way to busy the past two months with seminars. But today a colleague asked me whether my 21.4 install reports a 21.3 Build Label in the trace files. And this reminded me that I should now finally apply the patch bundles from October 2021 to our Hands-On Lab environment. So again, another blog post about Patching all my environments with the October 2021 Patch Bundles.

Patching all my environments with the October 2021 Patch Bundles

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As usual, an important annotation upfront: I patch in-place due to space issues. But in reality, you …

DBMS_OPTIM_BUNDLE and Out-Of-Place Patching

Posted on August 12, 2021 by Mike.Dietrich Flaws and Pitfalls Optimizer Patch Recommendation 6

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 …

DBMS_OPTIM_BUNDLE and disabling another fix

Posted on August 11, 2021 by Mike.Dietrich Optimizer Patch Recommendation 6

Yes, DBMS_OPTIM_BUNDLE week it is. As I received so many good questions and input after my blog post whether you should enable _fix_controls with DBMS_OPTIM_BUNDLE or not, now I can easily fill the rest of the week with new content. Today it will be about a customer’s question regarding DBMS_OPTIM_BUNDLE and disabling another fix.

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Disabling another fix

The setup is pretty simple. Stefan wanted to disable a different fix while he had all fixes from the most recent RU enabled on purpose. Sounds simple but has a dangerous pitfall.

This is what …

Should you enable _fix_controls with DBMS_OPTIM_BUNDLE?

Posted on August 10, 2021 by Mike.Dietrich Optimizer Patch Recommendation 14

Today, Paul mailed me asking a question we internally discussed many times in the past weeks: Should you enable _fix_controls with DBMS_OPTIM_BUNDLE? And there is no easy simple answer. But I can give a recommendation based on my experience from many projects.

Should you enable _fix_controls with DBMS_OPTIM_BUNDLE?

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DBMS_OPTIM_BUNDLE – a quick recap

Just in case you haven’t dealt with DBMS_OPTIM_BUNDLE recently, here is a quick recap.

With below procedure, you can list the available potentially behavior changing optimizer fixes in the current patch bundle – and you can turn them on or off at will:

SQL> set serveroutput on;

Patching all my environments with the July 2021 Patch Bundles

Posted on July 27, 2021 by Mike.Dietrich Patch Recommendation 49

It’s patching day again. Hurray! Or not. I realize that at patching day, the 19c bundles are all missing. So wrote this blog post a bit after the usual release day. In my case this will include Oracle 19.12.0 RU and the July 2021 RU for Oracle 12.2.0.1. Please find the details about Patching all my environments with the July 2021 Patch Bundles below.

Patching all my environments with the July 2021 Patch Bundles

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As usual, an important annotation upfront: I patch in-place due to space issues. But in reality, you please patch always out-of-place with a separate home. Please see this blog post …

AutoUpgrade may run into a timeout when GI is lower than 19.10.0

Posted on June 21, 2021 by Mike.Dietrich ASM / RAC / GI Patch Recommendation 9

The other day I received a question from a colleague about the risk of having GI and database both not being on the same RU. And a long while ago I blogged about it. We recommend that you keep it in synch. But you don’t have to. At the same time I received a wish from Ernst Leber to post something on the blog he and his colleague had trouble with when upgrading to 19c in a RAC environment. AutoUpgrade hung. But he titled his email with “not an AutoUpgrade problem!”. Still I agree, it is worth to write …

Some very important MOS Notes when you upgrade and patch

Posted on May 27, 2021 by Mike.Dietrich Patch Recommendation 16

Today, I would like to publish only a short blog post with some hints to MyOracle Support (MOS) notes we find quite helpful. The idea of all these notes I will list below is to help you finding the right patches before you upgrade or patch to Oracle 19c. So see our collection of Some very important MOS Notes when you upgrade and patch below.

Some very important MOS Note when you upgrade and patch

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Why do you need patch bundles?

At first, it is always our recommendation to upgrade to the most recent Release Update (RU). This is currently Oracle 19.11.0 while I’m …

ORA-1422 and ORA-6512 from SYS.DBMS_STATS in Post Upgrade

Posted on May 4, 2021 by Mike.Dietrich Optimizer Patch Recommendation 3

Ernst Leber sent me an email today. He hit an error at a customer upgrading to Oracle 19.9.0 on Exadata with AutoUpgrade. ORA-1422 and ORA-6512 from SYS.DBMS_STATS in Post Upgrade were signaled – and he better flashed back to the Guaranteed Restore Point. He found even a MOS note but still had questions. So time to blog about it in case you hit this error sequence as well.

ORA-1422 and ORA-6512 from SYS.DBMS_STATS in Post Upgrade Phase

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What happens, and when does it happen?

At first, this is not an AutoUpgrade issue. You may see the same error stack in the post upgrade …

Why do you need a password to download older patch bundles?

Posted on May 3, 2021 by Mike.Dietrich Patch Recommendation 8

A customer raised this question recently: Why do you need a password to download older patch bundles? The customer wanted to download a PSU from July 2020 on the MyOracle Support (MOS) platform but this wasn’t possible without a password.

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Why is there an extra password required?

In MOS Note: 888.1 – Master Note for Database Proactive Patch Program we documented the following:

1.4 Policy to obtain older Oracle Database Bundles, Updates & Revisions

Through our review of customer Service Requests (SRs), we find that customers frequently run into issues because they have unknowingly downloaded

New parameters and features in Oracle Database 19.11.0

Posted on April 26, 2021 by Mike.Dietrich Behavior Change Patch Recommendation 6

As usual, as soon as I apply the newest RU, I do also a quick check for New parameters and defaults in Oracle Database 19.11.0.

New parameters and features in Oracle Database 19.11.0

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New Parameters in Oracle 19.11.0

Based on customer feedback, there is one really big improvement since this RU release. Not only new features but also parameter changes get listed. You will find them in the 19c New Features Guide.

In this RU you will find only 1 new parameter:

drcp_dedicated_opt
The description says “Turn on/off dedicated optimization for DRCP” – and the default is “YES

Oracle 19c Installation with 19.11.0 RU, OJVM and some other fixes

Posted on April 22, 2021 by Mike.Dietrich Installation Oracle Database 19c Patch Recommendation 40

In an previous blog post we showed how to install and patch in one single action. And as I use this technique all the time when I setup new homes, would like to show you an Oracle 19c Installation with 19.11.0 RU, OJVM and some other fixes. The purpose of this blog post is mainly to demonstrate again how you can install and patch in one action. But also to help you avoiding a pitfall when you apply the OJVM RU from April 2021.

Oracle 19c Installation with 19.11.0 RU, OJVM and some other fixes

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What do we need?

At first, let us …

Patching all my environments with the April 2021 Patch Bundles

Posted on April 21, 2021 by Mike.Dietrich Patch Recommendation 62

Oh well, time flies. And it is April 2021, and hence I will start Patching all my environments with the April 2021 Patch Bundles. In my case, this will be 19.11.0 and 12.2.0.1 Release Updates. But there will be an additional blog post for the OJVM bundle, too.

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Data Pump Super Patch for Oracle 19.10 and newer

Posted on April 15, 2021 by Mike.Dietrich Data Pump Patch Recommendation 64

Just a few days we released a Data Pump Super Patch for Oracle 19.10 and newer. “Newer” refers to the fact that once 19.11.0 will be available, this merge patch I’m writing about will be available as well right away (sorry, got delayed a bit). And if you work with Data Pump, you may want to consider this performance patch collection.

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Why do you need this patch?

Many customer will know the issue that adding changes with datapatch may take a long time as soon as dpload.sql is involved. And this …

Important Recommended Patches for Oracle Database 19c

Posted on February 23, 2021 by Mike.Dietrich Patch Recommendation 18

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.

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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 …

Oracle Database 19.10.0 and Blockchain Tables and COMPATIBLE

Posted on February 18, 2021 by Mike.Dietrich Behavior Change Oracle Database 19c Parameters Patch Recommendation 4

Many of you recognized that we delivered a new feature with Oracle Database 19.10.0, the January 2021 Release Upgrade. So I’d like to put a few interesting things together from the upgrade and migration perspective regarding Oracle Database 19.10.0 and Blockchain Tables and COMPATIBLE.

Oracle Database 19.10.0 and Blockchain Tables and COMPATIBLE

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What are Blockchain Tables?

At first, I don’t want to repeat what other people have blogged and written about already. You may just go through the blog posts of Connor McDonald and Tim Hall and others to learn more about this cool feature.

Connor McDonald about “Blockchain

You may need a one-off for DBMS_OPTIM_BUNDLE in 19.10.0

Posted on February 1, 2021 by Mike.Dietrich Optimizer Patch Recommendation 22

It’s been a while since I blogged about the DBMS_OPTIM_BUNDLE – and to me, the package is still sort of a mystery. Ideally you can least and enable or disable behavior changing optimizer fixes per RU. And in Oracle 19.10.0, you will find a new surprise. So You may need a one-off for DBMS_OPTIM_BUNDLE in 19.10.0.

You may need a one-off for DBMS_OPTIM_BUNDLE in 19.10.0

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Quick Recap

Just in case you haven’t dealt with DBMS_OPTIM_BUNDLE yet or for a while, a quick recap.

With this procedure, you can list the available patches to turn on or off at will:

SQL> set serveroutput

Patch Recommendation

What has happened?

The more you patch, the worse it gets

Annotation

Is this necessary?

555.1 is one

The secret directories

Out-of-place Patching

Disabling another fix

DBMS_OPTIM_BUNDLE – a quick recap

Why do you need patch bundles?

What happens, and when does it happen?

Why is there an extra password required?

New Parameters in Oracle 19.11.0

What do we need?

Why do you need this patch?

What do you get?

What are Blockchain Tables?

Quick Recap

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