Downgrade from 12.1 to 11.2 (standard editions)

Oracle 11.2..0.4 SE-One

Upgrading to 12.1.0.2 SE-TWO -  non-cdb

Oracle GI 12.1.0.2 – standalone ASM, no RAC no clustering

Oracle Linux 6

Having completed upgrade testing, the last thing before ‘go live’ is a downgrade test.  I have some confusion about the docs on that subject.

Looking at “Downgrading a CDB or Non-CDB Oracle Database” at http://docs.oracle.com/database/121/UPGRD/downgrade.htm#UPGRD12556

Steps 1 through 3 say to log on to the system, cd to ORACLE_HOME (presumably the current 12.1 home), the connect as sysdba.  So far so good.

But then, instead of doing something with that sysdba session, the next steps (step 4 through 6) just repeats steps 1 through 3.   Not the exact same wording, but effectively the same actions.