ORA-00445 issues explained

Did you ever encounter the error 'ORA-00445 Background Process.....'? If so, read on to find out more about this issue, such as

    o What does the error mean?

    o Which files contain details about the error?

    o Potential causes and actions

What does the error "ORA-445 Background Process "xxxx" Did Not Start After 120 Seconds" mean?

ORA-00445 occurs when an Oracle background process was unable to spawn a child process in the stipulated amount of time i.e., 2 mins(120 seconds) and therefore this child process startup is aborted. The process which starts the child process does it in a synchronous manner and hence this parent process can't proceed with any other tasks until the child process spawning is completed. Sometimes this may lead to instance wide hang as the parent process may hold up other resources while spawning the child.