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Oracle Troubleshooting
The problems summarized on this page have been divided into two categories:
- Numbered Errors - Those errors that have an error number associated with them.
- Symptomatic Problems - Those errors that do not have an error number associated with them.
- DBV-00100: Specified file (XXXX) not accessible
- LRM-00109: Could not open parameter file
- ORA-00001: unique constraint violated
- ORA-00942: table or view does not exist
- ORA-01000: Maximum open cursors exceeded
- ORA-01004: default username feature not supported
- ORA-01013: user requested cancel of current operation
- ORA-01017: Invalid username/password
- ORA-01034: ORACLE not available
- ORA-01078: failure in processing system parameters
- ORA-01102: cannot mount database in exclusive mode
- ORA-01113: file n needs media recovery
- ORA-01418: specified index does not exist
- ORA-01466: unable to read data - table definition has changed
- ORA-01555: Snapshot too old
- ORA-01631: max # of extents nnn reached in table xxxx
- ORA-01691: unable to extend lob segment ...
- ORA-01843: not a valid month
- ORA-01990: Error opening password file ...
- ORA-01991: Invalid password file ...
- ORA-02170: FREELIST GROUPS storage option not allowed
- ORA-03121: no interface driver connected
- ORA-04030: out of process memory
- ORA-04031: unable to allocate ... shared memory
- ORA-04043: object SSS.NNN does not exist
- ORA-09352: OracleService(SID) has not been started
- ORA-12154: TNS:could not resolve service name
- ORA-12203: TNS: unable to connect to destination
- ORA-12224: TNS: no listener
- ORA-12505: TNS: listener could not resolve SID given in connection description
- ORA-12516: TNS:listener could not find available handler with matching protocol stack
- ORA-12541: TNS: no listener
- ORA-12545: Connect failed because target host or object does not exist
- ORA-12560: TNS:protocol adapter error
- ORA-12571: TNS:packet writer failure
- ORA-27102: out of memory
- RMAN-06089: archive log XXX not found or out of sync with catalog
- TNS-01169: The Listener has not recognised the password
Note: Some TNS related errors may be reported as ‘TNS-nnnnn’ rather than ‘ORA-nnnnn’. This seems to vary according to the tool that is reporting the error. They are listed above according to how to first encounter the error.
- Checkpoint intervals are more than LOG_CHECKPOINT_TIMEOUT
- Database instance failure
- Database instance locks up
- Datafile recovery needed
- Excessive disk activity
- Oracle Instance NNNN - Cannot allocate log. Archival required
- Oracle will not start-up automatically
- Oracle will not shut down
- Thread N cannot allocate log
ORACLE WILL NOT SHUTDOWN
Symptom:
A shutdown command has been issued to the Oracle database, but it will not shutdown.
Possible Causes:
The likely cause depends on the type of shutdown command that has been issued, i.e. a ‘Shutdown Normal’ or a ‘Shutdown Immediate’.
If 'Shutdown Normal' hangs
Symptom:
‘Shutdown normal’ has been issued to the Oracle database, but Oracle will not shutdown.
Possible Causes and Remedies:
There are two likely causes:
- ‘Shutdown Normal’ will only shutdown Oracle when there are no remaining connections to Oracle. It is likely therefore that an application still has an active session.
Possible Remedies:
- close all open sessions
- or issue a ‘shutdown immediate’.
- If using Oracle Parallel Server issuing ‘Shutdown normal’ on more than one node at a time can cause the system to hang. This is a recognized Oracle problem.
Possible remedies:
- Only issue ‘Shutdown normal’ on one node at a time, and only issue it on the next node when the previous node has completed its shutting down.
Alternately, use ‘shutdown immediate’ instead.
If 'Shutdown Immediate' hangs
Symptom:
Symptom: ‘Shutdown immediate’ has been issued to the Oracle database, but Oracle will not shutdown.
Possible causes and remedies:
- If someone is in the login process then shutdown immediate will not work and it will appear to hang.
Remedy: Issue ‘shutdown abort’
Note:
- ‘Shutdown normal’ or ‘shutdown immediate’ is preferred to ‘shutdown abort’, because ‘shutdown abort’ may require some recovery when the database is next started up and because ‘shutdown abort’ is not guaranteed to free up all system resources.
- In a parallel server environment, Oracle recommends (for 8.0.5 at least) shutting down the ‘OracleService<SID>’ in preference to using ‘shutdown abort’.
- For Oracle Parallel Server only: The database does shutdown but the command is not seen to complete.
Remedy:
Look at Task Manager. If an Oracle process is running at 100% and there has been not other noticeable activity for a while then kill the offending process. This is a known problem (for 8.0.5).
