RU

Patching to Oracle 19.19.0 out-of-place with additional patches

From all my quarterly blog posts you know that I patch usually in-place for space and other reasons. And you may have similar reasons when you patch. But it is not ideal – and just speaking about risk and downtime, you should always patch out-of-place. So let me show you how Patching to Oracle 19.19.0 out-of-place with additional patches works.

What do I need?

Actually, this is not complicated at all. And if you never done it this way, give it a try now please.

  • Base release Oracle Database 19.3.0 image
  • opatch 37 from
Continue reading...

Patching process changes with MRPs

I blogged about the Monthly Recommended Patches (MRP) several times before. And due to the feedback you and we had given, a few things got changed. The main change is from having the MRP bundled as a system patch making opatchauto a requirement. See below what Patching process changes with MRPs were implemented recently.

Before …

As you could read already in:

the introduction of the MRPs added one major flaw: They’ve been built as system patches which made …

Continue reading...

A patch (RU, OJVM, 32-bit) is not available yet – where will I find information?

A longer while ago I wrote a blog post about the topic that a patch (RU, OJVM, 32-bit) is not available yet – where will I find information? But I wrote it too specific. And it is even hard for me to find my older blog post. Since several of you mailed me the past weeks with a variety of questions regarding patch availability I decided to write down my thoughts – but this time in a more generic way. And I hope it is helpful.

Why are patches missing?

At first, I …

Continue reading...

Oracle Optimizer Statistics Advisor in Oracle 19c

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.

 

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 …

Continue reading...

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

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.

 

What is the symptom?

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

Continue reading...

MRP3 for Oracle 19.17.0 adds an interesting surprise

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.

 

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

Continue reading...

Patching my environments with the January 2023 Bundle Patches

Mid-of January. It’s patching time again. So let me show you the quarterly exercise of Patching my environments with the January 2023 Bundle Patches. Let’s see this time if I will have to remove my Data Pump Bundle Patch and the 19.17.0 MRP2 at first when I patch in-place.

Patching my environments with the January 2023 Bundle Patches

Photo by karokrasinska on Unsplash

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 directly when you provision a new home with OUI

Continue reading...

Important alert for Oracle Database and GI RU 19.18.0 on Linux

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

Photo by Gary Bendig on Unsplash

 

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 …

Continue reading...

RUs contain now all available DST patches

At first, Happy New Year everybody. There was silence on the blog for some weeks but I took an extended longer time off. Well, and once you return, there are some emails in your inbox which need some work. You’ll see several new blog posts getting published in the coming days. Back to normal, yesterday night RU 19.18.0 among other patch bundles has been released. And there’s a huge fantastic surprise in it: RUs contain now all available DST patches.

 

What’s the story?

There are some good news. We discussed this internally …

Continue reading...

Applying the first MRP for Oracle 19.17.0

A few weeks ago I blogged about the fact that we retired the RURs, and instead release the MRPs (Monthly Recommended Patches). In my previous blog post about this topic you’ll find also an FAQ hopefully answering all the questions you may have (had). And now it is mid of November, so I can show you the process of applying the first MRP for Oracle 19.17.0.

 

How do you get access to the MRPs?

At the moment while I write this, you can find the MRPs only in MOS Note: 888.1 -Primary

Continue reading...

Patching all my environments with the October 2022 Bundle Patches

Oh yes, it is patching time (again). And this time I somehow missed the slot since the quarterly critical patch updates got released right during Oracle Cloud World. Since I didn’t want to stretch the hotel WiFi too much – and since I wouldn’t have had enough time to install and write-up this blog post, I do it now with a week of delay. So as usual every quarter, follow me for patching all my environments with the October 2022 Bundle Patches.

As usual, an important annotation upfront: I patch in-place due to …

Continue reading...

Silent ORA-918 behavior change in RU 19.17.0 and newer

I think we have the best customers out there. It is incredible what some people find. We would be lost without you, and this blog would contain only a fraction of the information we can share with you. In this case let me explain the silent ORA-918 behavior change in RU 19.17.0 and newer. And all credits go to Peter Lehmann from Deutsche Telekom who found this issue only a few days after we released 19.17.0.

What is happening?

Peter shared an awesome and simple test case with me. A query with ambiguously defined …

Continue reading...

Patching News: RURs are gone – long live MRPs

Sorry for the headline using TLAs (three letter acronyms). But I was tempted – and those of you being interested in Oracle Database patching my quickly realize that there are some Patching News: RURs are gone – long live MRPs.

Patching News: RURs are gone - long live MRPs

Photo by Hu Chen on Unsplash

 

RURs are gone?

Andy Mendelsohn announced the MRPs (Monthly Recommended Patches) in October at DOAG Conference in Nuernberg already. Due to Oracle Cloud World bussiness, I’ve had no time to write about it yet. And the introduction of the MRPs means that we won’t produce RURs anymore after a transition grace period.…

Continue reading...

Certifying an application on a specific RU-only is wrong

Well, there are still 80+ comments I need to answer and reply to on the blog. So please be patient – nothing gets deleted or ignored. But it happens that a topic crosses my inbox, and I need to blog about it right now. Today, it is a case where a customer asked me for advice, and mentioned on the side that they are going to 19.6.0 in OCI. In this relation I’d like to explain why Certifying an application on a specific RU- only is wrong.

What’s the story?

At first, …

Continue reading...

Patching most of my environments with the July 2022 Bundle Patches

It’s brutally hot out there. It must be July. And I sit in my cool basement office and start my quarterly patching journey hoping that you can enjoy the sun and the sea somewhere. It is time to do my usual exercise, this time Patching most of my environments with the July 2022 Patch Bundles.

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 directly

Continue reading...

Binary patching is slow because of the inventory

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.

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

Continue reading...

How to speed up your database and GI patching

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 …

Continue reading...

Oracle Database 12.2.0.1 – End of Support and Patch Bundles

This will be a short blog post but since I received a number of messages yesterday after I published my usual Patching all my environments with the April 2022 Patch Bundles blog post I need to clarify a few things regarding Oracle Database 12.2.0.1 – End of Support and Patch Bundles.

Premier Support for Oracle 12.2.0.1

If you remember this, the Premier Support period for Oracle 12.2.0.1 ended on November 30, 2020.

Limited Error Correction Support for Oracle 12.2.0.1

Since many of you were still on Oracle 12.2.0.1 when the end of Premier Support …

Continue reading...

Patching all my environments with the April 2022 Patch Bundles

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.

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

Continue reading...

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

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?

Annotation

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

Continue reading...

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

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.

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 …

Continue reading...

Some additional information regarding the Oracle 19.14.0 RUs

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

Photo by Josh Hild on Unsplash

555.1 is one

Continue reading...

Patching all my environments with the January 2022 Patch Bundles

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.

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

Continue reading...

Patching all my environments with the October 2021 Patch Bundles

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

Photo by NCI on Unsplash

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

Continue reading...