Failed to start ASMB (connection failed) state=0x1

Issue with Oracle ASM

OPatch Failed with error code 73

Oracle OPatch  Error

Error:

Oracle Home       : <ORACLE_HOME> Path 

Central Inventory : The inventory that is being used by this opatch session

   from           : The inventory that is stored in the Oracle Home

OPatch version    : 12.2.0.1.44

OUI version       : 12.2.0.7.0

Log file location : /u01/oracle/product/19.3.0/cfgtoollogs/opatch/opatch<date>.log

OPatchSession cannot load inventory for the given Oracle Home <oracle_home>. Possible causes are:

   No read or write permission to ORACLE_HOME/.patch_storage

   Central Inventory is locked by another OUI instance

   No read permission to Central Inventory

   The lock file exists in ORACLE_HOME/.patch_storage

   The Oracle Home does not exist in Central Inventory

UtilSession failed: OPatch failed to locate Central Inventory.

Possible causes are:

    The Central Inventory is corrupted

    The oraInst.loc file specified is not valid.

This is because, sometime the /etc/oraInst.loc is pointing to the ora inventory in a temp location which the $ORACLE_HOME/oraInst.loc is not aware.

cat /etc/oraInst.loc

cat $ORACLE_HOME/oraInst.loc

check if both the files are pointing to the same location. if not, take a backup of the file and update the central inventory in $ORACLE_HOME/oraInst.loc.

cp -p $ORACLE_HOME/oraInst.loc $ORACLE_HOME/oraInst.loc.old

Modify the file accordingly for parameter inventory_loc=<Full PATH of the inventory, which can be copied from /etc/oraInst.loc>

Note: One more observation on the file permission, if you are running the grid with different usernames, the same group and sharing the same inventory, make sure, the files under /u01/oraInventory/ContentsXML have 644 permissions. So that while doing patching with Oracle users, it can modify those XML files.

Hope this helps resolve the error, happy patching!!

Best Wishes!!

OPatch Session Hung Forever | CUP_LOG: Found poh CUP XXXXXX is a subset of other poh CUP: XXXXX

Performance Issue with OPatch

Opatch Hung forever

CUP_LOG: Found poh CUP XXXXXX is a subset of other poh CUP: XXXXX

If you ever face issues with opatch utility is taking long time to run the prerequisite check and in the log you see the below line.

CUP_LOG: Found poh CUP XXXXXX is a subset of other poh CUP: XXXXX
CUP_LOG: Found poh CUP XXXXXX is a subset of other poh CUP: XXXXX
CUP_LOG: Found poh CUP XXXXXX is a subset of other poh CUP: XXXXX
CUP_LOG: Found poh CUP XXXXXX is a subset of other poh CUP: XXXXX
CUP_LOG: Found poh CUP XXXXXX is a subset of other poh CUP: XXXXX

It is time to cleanup some inactive patches from opatch inventory, to do that please follow the below instructions.

cd $ORACLE_HOME/OPatch

--This will list the inactive patches

./opatch util listorderedinactivepatches

--This will remove the inactive patches

./opatch util deleteinactivepatches

This will take some time depending on how many old inactive patches is present in the inventory.

Reference:

OPatch 12.2.0.1.37+ Introduces a New Feature to Delete Inactive Patches in the ORACLE_HOME/.patch_storage Directory (Doc ID 2942102.1)

Oracle DB Links

What is DB link? 

Oracle DB links are used to connect to different sources through procedures/views. It helps creating views or materialized views by pulling data from different db sources.

To check the db links present in the database, the below query can be used.

Query:

select * from dba_db_links;

SQL> desc dba_db_links;

 Name                                      Null?    Type

 ----------------------------------------- -------- ----------------------------

 OWNER                                     NOT NULL VARCHAR2(128)

 DB_LINK                                   NOT NULL VARCHAR2(128)

 USERNAME                                           VARCHAR2(128)

 HOST                                               VARCHAR2(2000)

 CREATED                                   NOT NULL DATE

 HIDDEN                                             VARCHAR2(3)

 SHARD_INTERNAL                                     VARCHAR2(3)

 VALID                                              VARCHAR2(3)

 INTRA_CDB                                          VARCHAR2(3)

Create a DB link:

Create or replace database link "<DB link name>" connect as "<remote username>" identified by "<Remote user password>" using "<Remote DB TNS details>";

Hope this helps. Please let me know if you face any issues, comment below.