Patches

New AutoUpgrade version 26.6 is available

Posted on September 30, 2026 by Mike.Dietrich AutoUpgrade 29

Yes, the long-awaited new AutoUpgrade version 26.6 is available for download. Again, a fantastic job by our development team. And I know that many of you were waiting for it already since it has some really cool new features, enhancements – and of course, fixes, too.

Photo by Jason Leung on Unsplash

Download AutoUpgrade

As I described already in AutoUpgrade Patching – From Zero to Hero – Part 1: Download AutoUpgrade, you have several ways to fetch the newest version of AutoUpgrade – and when you use it to download patches, it will automatically trigger an update with the …

DST Time Zone Patches missing in 23ai Release Updates

We work right now with a number of customers going live or being live on Oracle Database 23ai already. And tomorrow will be the release date for the quarterly Release Update, in this case for Oracle Database 23.8.0. But you should be aware of one thing: DST Time Zone Patches missing in 23ai Release Updates.

DST Time Zone Patches missing in 23ai Release Updates

Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash

Time Zone patches and RUs?

In January 2023 I blogged about the inclusion of DST Time Zone patches in Release Updates. But later I learned that this applied only to Oracle Database 19c, and not to 21c. I …

Should you enable _fix_controls with DBMS_OPTIM_BUNDLE?

Posted on August 10, 2021 by Mike.Dietrich Optimizer Patch Recommendation 21

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;

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.

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 …

Recap: Support Periods for Oracle 11.2.0.4, on-prem and in the cloud

Posted on December 17, 2020 by Mike.Dietrich Cloud Release Schedule 6

You may have recognized that I don’t update the blog as frequent as usual. But these times are very busy with plenty of conferences and many of our customers preparing for the move to 19c in the more quieter period of the year. And this is the right time to do a quick recap: Support Periods for Oracle 11.2.0.4, on-prem and in the cloud.

Recap: Support Period for Oracle 11.2.0.4, on-prem and in the cloud

Photo by Arnaud STECKLE on Unsplash – this car is a VW Karman Ghia

11.2.0.what?

Ah, well. Do you remember when Oracle Database 11.2.0.1 got released?

No worries, I’ve had to look it up by …

Fixes for Adaptive Features are included in Oracle 12.1.0.2 October 2017 BP

Posted on October 19, 2017 by Mike.Dietrich Optimizer Patch Recommendation 26

Finally … the two most important fixes for Adaptive Features are included in Oracle 12.1.0.2 October 2017 BP (Bundle Patch). I’m absolutely happy about this. Almost all of my customer and many folks outside I’m dealing with on a regular basis had to request and wait for merge patches over and over again. And we all knew – also based on the experience of the Real World Performance Team – that these two patches are so important to stabilize Oracle 12.1.0.2 production systems.

You may find this ALERT on MyOracle Support:

MOS Note 2289719.1
ALERT: Oracle Recommended Adaptive Feature Configuration …

DBMS_OPTIM_BUNDLE – only available in Oracle 12.1.0.2 – or not?

Posted on July 25, 2017 by Mike.Dietrich Optimizer Patch Recommendation 2

DBMS_OPTIM_BUNDLE - only available in Oracle 12.1.0.2 The DBMS_OPTIM_BUNDLE package got introduced with the April 2014 Exadata 11.2.0.4 Bundle Patch. And it got introduced for all Oracle 12.1.0.2 databases with the April 2017 Bundle Patch (BP). DBMS_OPTIM_BUNDLE is only available in Oracle 12.1.0.2.

Addition March 6, 2018:
See the updated blog post about DBMS_OPTIM_BUNDLE available in Oracle 12.2 and 18c onwards.
https://mikedietrichde.com/2018/03/08/dbms_optim_bundle-package-oracle-12-2-18c/

For more information on this package on Exadata in Oracle 11.2.0.4 you may look at:

Purpose of DBMS_OPTIM_BUNDLE package in Oracle 12.1.0.2

The package got introduced to enable module bug fixes which …

Adpative Features Patches with Oracle Peoplesoft

Posted on July 6, 2017 by Mike.Dietrich Optimizer Patch Recommendation 7

Adaptive Feature Patches with Oracle Peoplesoft - Accenture Enkitec's Experience I’ve met David Kurtz, an Oracle ACE Director working for Accenture’s Enkitec division in the UK earlier this year on the OUGN Conference‘s boat trip from Oslo to Kiel and return. We set across the table at dinner. And of course we started discussing “Oracle”. David went to my talk about “How to ensure Performance Stability” before. He did ask me questions about the adaptive features patches I was recommending in my talk:

Enabling Oracle 12.2 ADAPTIVE Features in Oracle 12.1.0.2

The Adaptive Feature Patches

I explained to him that he will have to request these specific two …

Parameter Recommendations for Oracle Database 12c – Part I

Posted on March 4, 2016 by Mike.Dietrich Oracle Database 12c Parameters Patch Recommendation 5

Preface

Please be advised – the following parameter list is mostly based on personal experience only. Some of them are officially recommended by Oracle Support. Always use proper testing mechanisms.

We strongly recommend SQL Performance Analyzer to …

PSU (and CPU/SPU) October 2015 got released

Posted on October 22, 2015 by Mike.Dietrich Patch Recommendation 5

October 21, 2015 – Oracle released the October 2015 SPU/CPU, PSU and BPs.

See:

Patch Set Update Availability
MOS Note:756671.1
Oracle Recommended Patches — Oracle Database
October 2015 PSU/CPU:
MOS Note: 2037108.1
Patch Set Update and Critical Patch Update October 2015 Availability Document
CPU Security Alerts October 2015
http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/topics/security/cpuoct2015-2367953.html

For Oracle Database 12.1.0.2 and Oracle Grid Infrastructure access the PSUs from here – if you have only a single instance database you can safely take the Combo patch as you’ll get downtime anyways – but for customers running RAC you need to evaluate the OJVM component as this will incur …

SQL Plan Management – Known Issues in Oracle 12.1.0.2

Posted on September 14, 2015 by Mike.Dietrich Patch Recommendation SPM - SQL Plan Management 6

Our Support colleagues released the patch recommendation note for SQL Plan Management (SPM) for Oracle Database 12.1.0.2.

MOS Note:2035898.1
Patches to Consider for 12.1.0.2 to Avoid Problems with SQL Plan Management (SPM)

SPM Note

In the unlikely event you’d like to upgrade to Oracle Database 11.2.0.4 or (very very unlikely hopefully) 11.2.0.3 please see these matching notes:

Some additional things to mention:

SPM is an Oracle Enterprise Edition feature at no

Things to consider BEFORE upgrading to Oracle 12.1.0.2 to AVOID poor performance and wrong results

Posted on July 30, 2015 by Mike.Dietrich Flaws and Pitfalls Optimizer 8

Finally it got published on MyOracle Support (MOS) portal – one of the most helpful notes when we prep for an upgrade or a migration – and potentially the one with the longest title in MOS:

MOS Note: 2034610.1
Things to consider BEFORE upgrading to Oracle Database 12.1.0.2 to AVOID poor performance and wrong results

Avoid Poor Performance and Wrong Results when upgrading to 12.1.0.2

One important note regarding these “Things to Consider” notes:
They will only list issues where either a fix or a proven workaround is available. They don’t list all open issues nor do they recommend every given underscore which may cure one or the other misbehavior.…

DBUA 12c and “datapatch.pl” – things to know

Posted on July 20, 2015 by Mike.Dietrich DBUA Patch Recommendation 33

For clarification:
The following blog post applies to upgrades to Oracle 12.1 done by DBUA only whenever a SPU/PSU/BP is installed into the 12.1 home prior to the upgrade (which I’d highly recommend as patching before upgrade saves you headache after upgrade!).

Update [Dec 10, 2015]:
The required patch is included in 12.1.0.2BP13 but not 12.1.0.2.PSU5 (Oct 2015) – it will be included in the 12.1.0.2.PSU6 (Jan 2016) and all following PSUs.

Update:
For Oracle Database 12.2 and newer please see:
https://mikedietrichde.com/2017/05/25/dbca-execute-datapatch-oracle-database-12-2/

Two customers independently reported last week that they have doubts on DBUA’s ability to apply the required SQL …

Avoid Poor Performance and Wrong Results in 11.2.0.4

Posted on April 17, 2014 by Mike.Dietrich MyOracle Support Optimizer Oracle Database 11g Patch Recommendation 18

One of the best notes in MOS got refreshed last night for Oracle Database 11.2.0.4. It has not only information about performance bugs but also about the worst and meanest category of issues, wrong query result bugs. Those are the ones I call the “sleeping beauties” as you as a DBA usually won’t recognize them. It is recognized at the application level when the result of a report is incorrect or instead of 4 rows just 3 rows get delivered in the output. Therefore you should be highly aware of those and add this note to your …

October 2013 PSUs and CPUs – News for 12c

Posted on October 16, 2013 by Mike.Dietrich Patch Recommendation 0

Last night CET the most recent Patch Set Updates (PSU) and Critical Patch Updates (CPU aka SPU) got published on MOS. And there’s a significant and remarkable change for Oracle Database 12c onwards. MOS Note: 1571391.1 – Patch Set Update and Critical Patch
Update October 2013 Availability Document says:

2.1 Database Security Patching from 12.1.0.1 Onwards

Starting with Oracle Database version 12.1.0.1, Oracle only provides
Patch Set Updates (PSU) to meet the Critical Patch Update (CPU) program
requirements for security patching. Security Patch Updates (SPU) will no
longer be available. Oracle has moved to this simplified model due to
popular

Patches

New AutoUpgrade version 26.6 is available

Download AutoUpgrade

DST Time Zone Patches missing in 23ai Release Updates

Time Zone patches and RUs?

Should you enable _fix_controls with DBMS_OPTIM_BUNDLE?

DBMS_OPTIM_BUNDLE – a quick recap

Fixes for Adaptive Features are included in Oracle 12.1.0.2 October 2017 BP

DBMS_OPTIM_BUNDLE – only available in Oracle 12.1.0.2 – or not?

Purpose of DBMS_OPTIM_BUNDLE package in Oracle 12.1.0.2

Adpative Features Patches with Oracle Peoplesoft

The Adaptive Feature Patches

Parameter Recommendations for Oracle Database 12c – Part I

Preface

PSU (and CPU/SPU) October 2015 got released

SQL Plan Management – Known Issues in Oracle 12.1.0.2

Things to consider BEFORE upgrading to Oracle 12.1.0.2 to AVOID poor performance and wrong results

DBUA 12c and “datapatch.pl” – things to know

Avoid Poor Performance and Wrong Results in 11.2.0.4

October 2013 PSUs and CPUs – News for 12c

2.1 Database Security Patching from 12.1.0.1 Onwards

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