Fresh install of 18c Windows not working

4326818

Background:

• Windows 10 2004
• vsphere 6.7
• Oracle XE 18c

Procedure:

• I do a fresh install of XE with no visible errors.
• I open a cmd window and do: sqlplus / as sysdba
• I run: select * from v$version;

select * from v$version

*

ERROR at line 1:

ORA-01034: ORACLE not available

Process ID: 0

Session ID: 0 Serial number: 0

• I run: startup

ORA-01078: failure in processing system parameters

LRM-00109: could not open parameter file 'C:\APP\MyUser\PRODUCT\18.0.0\DBHOMEXE\DATABASE\INITXE.ORA'

• I run: lsnrctl status

LSNRCTL for 64-bit Windows: Version 18.0.0.0.0 - Production on 15-SEP-2020 09:28:54

Copyright (c) 1991, 2018, Oracle.  All rights reserved.

Connecting to (DESCRIPTION=(ADDRESS=(PROTOCOL=TCP)(HOST=172.16.3.244)(PORT=1521)))

STATUS of the LISTENER

------------------------

Alias                     LISTENER

Version                   TNSLSNR for 64-bit Windows: Version 18.0.0.0.0 - Production

Start Date                14-SEP-2020 17:21:38

Uptime                    0 days 16 hr. 7 min. 20 sec

Trace Level               off

Security                  ON: Local OS Authentication

SNMP                      OFF

Default Service           XE

Listener Parameter File   C:\app\MyUser\product\18.0.0\dbhomeXE\network\admin\listener.ora

Listener Log File         C:\app\MyUser\product\18.0.0\diag\tnslsnr\DESKTOP-T7RFK8C\listener\alert\log.xml

Listening Endpoints Summary...

  (DESCRIPTION=(ADDRESS=(PROTOCOL=tcp)(HOST=172.16.3.244)(PORT=1521)))

  (DESCRIPTION=(ADDRESS=(PROTOCOL=ipc)(PIPENAME=\\.\pipe\EXTPROC1521ipc)))

Services Summary...

Service "CLRExtProc" has 1 instance(s).

  Instance "CLRExtProc", status UNKNOWN, has 1 handler(s) for this service...

The command completed successfully

Can anyone assist? Note I can easily rollback to an eariler VM snapshot and start from scratch if necessary.

Andris Perkons-Oracle

LRM-00109: could not open parameter file 'C:\APP\FREEFLYER\PRODUCT\18.0.0\DBHOMEXE\DATABASE\INITXE.ORA'

This seems to be the problem.

Check if you have an "INITXE.ORA" somewhere else. Actually, I would have expected it in "C:\APP\FREEFLYER\PRODUCT\18.0.0\DBHOMEXE\DBS\INITXE.ORA", but then, I know nothing about Oracle on Windows.

Andris

4326818

Sorry - I just fixed my post but i was trying to sanitize the user name there...but it doesn't really matter.

There is an init.ora in the dbs directory. The database directory has a PWDXE.ora.

Andris Perkons-Oracle

It's hard to tell why the file was not created and if this is the only issue you have. Do you have an installation log that could give a clue what happened?

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C:\app\MyUser\product\18.0.0\cfgtoollogs\dbca\XE\XE.log

[ 2020-09-14 17:22:01.606 EDT ] [WARNING] [DBT-06208] The 'SYS' password entered does not conform to the Oracle recommended standards.

[ 2020-09-14 17:22:01.606 EDT ] [WARNING] [DBT-06208] The 'SYSTEM' password entered does not conform to the Oracle recommended standards.

[ 2020-09-14 17:22:01.606 EDT ] [WARNING] [DBT-06208] The 'PDBADMIN' password entered does not conform to the Oracle recommended standards.

[ 2020-09-14 17:22:02.215 EDT ] Prepare for db operation

DBCA_PROGRESS : 7%

[ 2020-09-14 17:22:02.778 EDT ] Copying database files

DBCA_PROGRESS : 8%

[ 2020-09-14 17:25:19.288 EDT ] [WARNING] ORA-00821: Specified value of sga_target 1536M is too small, needs to be at least 1968M

ORA-01078: failure in processing system parameters

DBCA_PROGRESS : 9%

[ 2020-09-14 17:25:19.288 EDT ] [FATAL] ORA-01034: ORACLE not available

DBCA_PROGRESS : 29%

DBCA_PROGRESS : 100%

[ 2020-09-14 17:25:19.303 EDT ] [FATAL] ORA-01034: ORACLE not available

DBCA_PROGRESS : 7%

DBCA_PROGRESS : 0%

This machine does have 32-cores...I wonder if that is related.

L. Fernigrini

Seems like the SGA size defined is too small and the instance failed to start...

That is strange since the size of SGA is not configured on the installation wizard, it is calculated by Oracle...

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Ok - reducing the core count to 4 and installing fixes the issue. I can then bump up the core count to 32 and it still seems to work. I can do things this way if i have to, but might there be a way to set a variable before installing so i don't need to go through that?

L. Fernigrini

It must be a bug at the moment of creating the DB, there must be a minimum SGA required calculation that includes the CPU count and that gives the error. Since XE is limited to 2Gb there is nothing you can do to increase SGA, but reducing the CPU count (since it is a virtual environment) allows the calculation to fit into the XE limits...

That is probably a validation that should be removed on XE.... Do not use CPU count to estimate minimum SGA size at creation time.

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Is there any point in trying to report this as a bug to oracle? If so, anyone know the appropriate place?

L. Fernigrini

@Gerald Venzl-Oracle is Product manager of Oracle XE, he may be able to know how to proceed

4326818

FYI after fixing that problem I found that silent installation fails...so i gave up. 11.2 worked perfectly the first time.