10.2.0.3 patch fails if database word size had ever been changed in the past

Thanks to Chris Carr for pointing out this:

If you are upgrading or patching to 10.2.0.3 and the word size is different to the word size when the database was created the upgrade will fail with an ora-600. This applies even if the wordsize has been changed in an interim upgrade i.e. 8.1.7 32bit upgraded to 9.2.0 64bit will not upgrade to 10.2.0.3 64 bit, (but will upgrade to 10.2.0.3 32 bit).

To identify whether a database was created as 32-bit or 64-bit, execute the following SQL statement:

SQL> select metadata from sys.kopm$ ;

If the output references the string 'B023' then it indicates that the database was created as 32-bit If the output references the string 'B047' then it indicates that the database was created as 64-bit

Metalink note on this is Note 412271.1.

There is a patch to fix this before applying 10.2.0.3, although it is available on Linux, Solaris, HPUX and AIX only so far, not on Windows for some reason.

May 2, 2007
Posted in Bugs

  • Oooh this would have stung me for sure, although I’m not yet sold on patching to 10.2.0.3 (currently on 10.2.0.2). Thanks for the post!

  • Mother of Mercy, good catch.

    One would think, Oracle would send out an (screaming) email to all of those who downloaded the patch..shess.

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