RMAN

I was working on configuring a new database for backup to ZDLRA and hit this issue while testing a controlfile backup via Enterprise Manager -> Schedule backup. It could happen in any environment. Unable to connect to the database with SQLPlus, either because the database is down or due to an environment issue such as incorrectly specified... If the database is up, check the database target monitoring properties and verify that the Oracle Home value is correct. The 2nd line clearly tells the problem but since the Cluster Database status in EM was green, so it took me a while to figure it out. Issue turned out to be a missing / in the end of ORACLE_HOME specified in monitoring configuration of the cluster database. The DB home specified was /u01/app/oracle/product/11.2.0.4/dbhome_1 instead of /u01/app/oracle/product/11.2.0.4/dbhome_1 /. ...

On a T5 Super Cluster (running 11.2.0.3) I was creating a cascaded standby from an already functional standby using RMAN DUPLICATE and it errored out with ORA-01671: control file is a backup, cannot make a standby control file A quick search reveals that it is bug 11715084 that affects most of the 11.x versions except 11.2.0.4. There is a one off patch available for most of the versions or one can install the bundle patch that includes the fix for this patch. I applied BP26 and it worked fine after that. ...