Oracle® Database

4.1 Latest Upgrade Information

For late-breaking updates and best practices about preupgrade, postupgrade, compatibility, and interoperability discussions, refer to Note 785351.1 on My Oracle Support (formerly OracleMetaLink) (https://support.oracle.com/) that links to "Oracle 11gR2 Upgrade Companion" page.

4.2 Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable Packages

The Microsoft Visual C++ 2005 SP1 Redistributable Package is automatically installed with the Oracle Database 11g Release 2 (11.2) software. Do not remove this package from the Add or Remove Programs interface in the Control Panel.

4.3 Upgrading Windows 32-Bit to Windows 64-Bit Using Oracle OLAP

To upgrade Windows 32-bit to Windows 64-bit using the Oracle Online Analytical Processing (OLAP) option, refer to Note 352306.1 on My Oracle Support (formerly OracleMetaLink) at:

https://support.oracle.com/

4.4 Issues Associated with SID Containing Underscore Character

Oracle Database 11.2 supports Oracle SID having an underscore but it is not compatible with the earlier client releases with a bequeath connection. The issue affects any Oracle Database Client 11.1.0.7 or earlier client, when connecting to the database over a bequeath connection. This includes all OCI clients and Oracle Enterprise Manager agents that monitor the database.

Workaround:

Use only alphanumeric characters including hyphens for Oracle SID or connect to the database using TCP connection.

This issue is tracked with Oracle bug 7611024.

4.5 Enabling Oracle Automatic Storage Management Dynamic Volume Manager Volumes

Oracle Automatic Storage Management Dynamic Volume Manager volumes are typically enabled automatically. Disk groups that are listed in the init.ora file for Oracle Automatic Storage Management (Oracle ASM) have all volumes automatically enabled during disk mount.

For volumes in disk groups that are mounted manually, you must also manually enable the volumes in that disk group before using them.

In Oracle Restart, to load Oracle Automatic Storage Management Cluster File System drivers during system initialization as an Administrator, you must manually reload the three drivers associated with Oracle ACFS: Oracle OKS, Oracle ADVM and Oracle ACFS.

This issue is tracked with Oracle bug 7700977.

4.6 Automatic Storage Management Service Is Disabled After System Restart

After an installation, the Automatic Storage Management Startup Type is set to Manual. Hence, Automatic Storage Management does not start when you restart the system.

Workaround:

In Services Control Manager, change the Startup Type to Automatic.

4.7 OCI Instant Client Version Update Issue

A new Oracle Database release does not update OCI Instant Client version.

Solution:

Use the OCIClientVersion feature to determine the client version instead of checking the dll version number.

This issue is tracked with Oracle bug 8372062.

4.8 ORA-00600 Error During Database Upgrade

When you upgrade from Oracle database release 9.2 to release 10.2, and then upgrade to release 11.2, the database upgrade fails with an ORA-00600 error.

This issue is tracked with Oracle bug 8668823.

4.9 Oracle Clusterware Upgrade Error

When you use Oracle Universal Installer to upgrade Oracle Clusterware 11g Release 1 (11.1.0.6), or Oracle Clusterware 11g Release 1 (11.1.0.7) to Oracle Clusterware 11g Release 2 (11.2), you may receive the following error:

[INS-40406] There is no previous version of grid software detected on the system.

Workaround:

While upgrading a node, for instance a remote node, other than the one on which Oracle Clusterware 11g Release 1 (11.1.0.6) was installed, the registry key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Oracle\inst_loc may not be set correctly.

Ensure that you manually set the registry key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Oracle\inst_loc to the location of the Oracle Inventory directory of the node on which you are performing the upgrade installation.

This issue is tracked with Oracle bugs 9210861 and 6527941.

4.10 EMVLOGGER.EXE Process Does Not Restart Automatically

If the EMVLOGGER.EXE process is terminated at the operating system level, it fails to restart automatically because of an existing log file.

Workaround:

Remove the emvlogger log file at Grid_home\evm\log\*_evmlogger.log, where Grid_home is the location of your Oracle grid infrastructure installation. The EVMLOGGER.EXE process should automatically restart after approximately one minute.

This issue is tracked with Oracle bug 9260650.

4.11 Windows Service Issue for Oracle Database

Manually shutting down an Oracle database or stopping an Oracle ASM instance using CRSCTL utility or SQL*Plus does not stop its associated Windows service.

Workaround:

Using the Services management console, manually stop the Windows service associated with the Oracle instance. You can access the Services management console through the Control Panel, or you can stop the Oracle database service, or Oracle ASM service directly using the following commands:

net stop OracleServiceSID
net stop oracleASMServiceSID

This issue is tracked with Oracle bug 9178097.

4.12 Remote Agents Must Be Manually Reloaded After Cluster Ready Services (CRS) Upgrade and Oracle ASM Upgrade

When attempting to upgrade CRS or Oracle ASM to 11.2 release using the Automatic Storage Management Configuration Assistant (ASMCA), the upgrade succeeds, but the configuration changes made to the Agents on a remote host fail to reload. As a result, Oracle Enterprise Manager Grid Control and Database Control cannot monitor the Oracle ASM and CRS targets.

Workaround:

Manually reload the remote agents after the upgrade using the following command:

emctl reload agent

This issue is tracked with Oracle bug 9398380.

4.13 Oracle MTS Recovery Service Issue When Installing Oracle RAC

In an Oracle RAC database installation, Oracle MTS Recovery Service on the remote nodes does not have the correct host name registered for string variable HOST under registry key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\ORACLE\OracleMTSRecoveryService\Protid_0. This variable contains the name of the host from where the installation was performed instead of the name of the local host. This registry variable is used by COM+ applications to pass information to Oracle databases so that they can connect back to the Windows computer if the database needs to resolve in-doubt COM+ transactions. The incorrect host name that is registered can cause transaction recovery issues.

Workaround:

To fix this, use Registry Editor (regedit) on the remote Windows system and look under the registry key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\ORACLE\OracleMTSRecoveryService\Protid_0

The string-type values for the following key must be set correctly:

Name:            *Host*
Type:            REG_SZ
Data: << the name of the host-machine e.g. myhost@example.com <mailto:myhost@example.com>>> 

This key must contain the host name of the system on which the registry key exists.

This issue is tracked with Oracle bug 9483665.

4.14 Root Script Status Not Displayed with Oracle Grid Infrastructure

When running rootcrs.pl or roothas.pl to configure, upgrade, or deconfigure Oracle grid infrastructure, the script does not display the success or failure status in the command window.

Workaround:

None. Check the log file generated at the following location to know the status of the script:

Grid_home/cfgtoollogs/rootcrs_host_name.log 

This issue is tracked with Oracle bug 9473262.

4.15 Issue Encountered If Non-ASCII Characters Are Used in Network Connection Names for Oracle Grid Infrastructure

While installing or upgrading Oracle grid infrastructure for a cluster, you might encounter an issue if non-ASCII characters are used in network connection names for some languages, such as French.

Workaround:

Do not use non-ASCII characters in network connection names.

This issue is tracked with Oracle bug 9472214.

5.1 Oracle Wallet Manager Help Does Not Work

The Oracle Wallet Manager screen images and icons do not display clearly, and Oracle Wallet Manager help does not work.

Workaround:

Add owm-images.jar and owm_help.jar to the CLASSPATH variable in the owm.cl file so that the screen is displayed clearly and the Oracle Wallet Manager help works correctly.

Perform the following steps:

1. In the Start menu, right-click the OWM icon and select Properties. This gives you the location of the owm.cl file.

2. Open the owm.cl file using a text editor.

3. Add the owm-images.jar and owm_help.jar files to the CLASSPATH variable in the owm.cl file.

   Note:

   The path of the .jar should be same as of owm-3_0.jar. Typically, the owm-images.jar and owm_help.jar files are located in C:\app\user-name\product\11.2.0\ORACLE_HOME\owm\jlib\.

4. Save the changes to the owm.cl file.

This issue is tracked with Oracle bug 7506415.

5.2 Delete Node Deployment Procedure Not Supported

Deleting nodes using Oracle Enterprise Manager Database Control is currently not supported. However, you can manually delete the nodes. See the following for more information:

• Chapter 3, "Cloning Oracle Clusterware to Create a Cluster" and Chapter 4, "Adding and Deleting Cluster Nodes on Windows Systems" in the Oracle Clusterware Administration and Deployment Guide

• Chapter 10, "Adding and Deleting Nodes and Instances on Windows Systems" in the Oracle Real Application Clusters Administration and Deployment Guide

5.3 Oracle Database Extensions for .NET (ODE.NET) Support on Windows x64

.NET Stored Procedures run fine with .NET Framework 2.0 and with .NET Framework 2.0 SP1. Running a .NET Stored Procedure with .NET Framework 2.0 SP2 causes an access violation in extproc.exe.

Workaround:

Install Microsoft hotfix KB974168.

5.4 Oracle RAC Patch Not Supported

Oracle RAC patch from Oracle Enterprise Manager Database Control is not supported.

Workaround:

Run OPatch to apply patches to Oracle RAC databases.

This issue is tracked with Oracle bug 9128255.

5.5 Incorrect Reverse Ping Command from Oracle Management Service (OMS)

Oracle Management Service provides incorrect reverse ping command with Oracle Enterprise Manager Database Control. The emoms.properties file shows:

emdrep.ping.pingCommand=ping <hostname>

Workaround:

Change the property in the emoms.properties file to:

ping -n 3 -w 30000 <hostname>

This issue is tracked with Oracle bug 9211800.

5.6 Installing Online Patches on Windows Systems

The Opatch tool shipped with Oracle Database 11g Release 2 fails while applying online patches on Windows systems.

Workaround:

Opatch tool version 11.2.0.1.1 is available on My Oracle Support as Patch 6880880 for Oracle Database 11g Release 2. Download and install Opatch Tool version 11.2.0.1.1 before applying online patches on Windows systems.

To list the database instances patched by an online patch, run the opatch lsinventory -details command. Ensure that you run the opatch rollback command instead of opatch disableOnlinepatch command to disable and remove an online patch from the final database instance in a node. The disableOnlinepatch command disables the online patch, but does not remove it. To remove the online patch in a disabled state, use -no_sysmod flag with Opatch rollback command only when opatch lsinv -details show no instances patched with it. For example, use opatch rollback -id 1234 -no_sysmod only when opatch lsinv -details show no instances patched for 1234.

This issue is tracked with Oracle bugs 8843060 and 9440270.

5.7 File Systems Mounted with Drive Letters on Oracle ADVM Volumes Are Not Visible in Windows Explorer

When the Oracle ACFS mount registry resource or the Oracle ACFS individual file system resource mounts an Oracle ADVM volume on a drive letter, the drive is not visible in Windows Explorer. This only affects the visibility of the drive letter in Windows Explorer; the volume is mounted and fully accessible using the command line, and is visible using the acfsutil.exe utility.

Workaround:

You must log out and log back in to view the driver letter in Windows Explorer.

This issue is tracked with Oracle bug 9343876.

5.8 Download Microsoft Handle Utility When Using Oracle ACFS

The Microsoft handle utility is required for proper operation of Oracle ACFS High Availability resources managed by Oracle Clusterware. Oracle Clusterware resources may not shut down properly if this command is not included.

Workaround:

Download the Microsoft Handle utility from:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896655.aspx

After downloading, place the Handle utility in the BIN directory of your Clusterware Home.

This issue is tracked with Oracle bug 9349433.

5.9 Grid Naming Service (GNS) Failure

Using the node name instead of an IP address is supported when adding GNS to a cluster, but may fail because the name cannot be resolved.

Workaround:

Ensure that the node name is entered correctly. You can also use the IP address assigned to the node instead of the node name.

This issue is tracked with Oracle bug 9391290.

5.10 Oracle Grid Infrastructure Listeners Issue

After installing Oracle grid infrastructure, the default listener does not listen on public addresses. As a result, even though the listener is available, the listener does not service the database or Oracle ASM instances.

Workaround 1:

If you are not using GNS with DHCP, then perform the following steps:

1. Add the local IP address and host name information to Systemroot%\System32\Drivers\Etc\Hosts.

   For example, IP address host name such as 192.0.2.254 dbhost.

2. Restart the Oracle grid infrastructure listener.

This issue is tracked with Oracle bug 9382523.

Workaround 2:

If you have configured GNS and use DHCP to assign the addresses for the cluster nodes, then configure DHCP so that the IP address assigned to the host name for each cluster node (the public IP address) has a smaller numeric value than the IP addresses assigned for the Virtual IP (VIP) address, GNS VIP address, or SCAN VIP address for a node.

For example, you could use IP addresses in the range of xxx.xxx.xxx.0 – xxx.xxx.xxx.099 for only host IP addresses, and all other IP address assignments must use a value of xxx.xxx.xxx.100 or higher.

This issue is tracked with Oracle bug 9441288.

5.11 Shared Oracle Home Shortcuts Do Not Work on Windows Server 2008

Starting Oracle tools such as Net Configuration Assistant, Database Configuration Assistant, Database Upgrade Assistant, Net Manager, Oracle Universal Installer, and so on, from shared Oracle home shortcut gives the following error:

Missing shortcut: windows is searching launch.exe

The shortcuts exit following the error.

Workaround:

Start the tools with Administrator privileges.

This issue is tracked with Oracle bug 7525053.

5.12 addnode.bat Script Shows Success When One or More Node Additions Failed

When running the addnode.bat script to add one or more nodes to your cluster, if there was a failure during any installation on any of the new nodes, they are removed from the list of nodes to be adding to the cluster. As a result the updatenodelist command called at the end of the node addition process returns a status of success even if there was a failure in adding a node.

Workaround:

None. Verify that the new nodes are correctly added to the nodelist at the end of addnode procedure. If not, check the addnode logs for any error messages. Correct the problem and repeat the addnode procedure.

This issue is tracked with Oracle bug 9481472.