Mike Dietrich

AI World 2026: REPEAT of the Patching talk at 2:15 PM today If you missed our patching talk yesterday, then you have another chance today. Don't miss it at AI World 2026: REPEAT of the Patching talk at 2:15 PM today, Oct 27. And be there early. We went beyond room capacity yesterday already, and…

AI World 2026: 60 minutes until the Migrate to 26ai session Are you at Oracle AI World 2026: 60 minutes until the Migrate to 26ai session at 11:45 AM today, Oct 27. If you want to understand the decision path for using Data Pump versus Transportable Tablespaces, or migrate with Oracle Enterprise…

AI World 2026: 60 minutes until the Upgrade 26ai session Good morning, Las Vegas! Are you awake already? I am - and I guess, Daniel is too. We are looking forward to see you in about 60 minutes in room Marco Polo 705 on level 1 (the basement level). Be there a little bit earlier since the queue…

AI World 2026: Must-attend Patching sessions on Oct 26 AI World 2026 has started - and we are excited to see you in Las Vegas. We ran a full day workshop on Sunday already but Monday is the day where it starts for everyone. Now, if you wonder what's really important to see in our are at AI World…

AI World 2026: Don’t miss the UPGRADE TO 26ai talk on Oct 27 Are you an early bird? Daniel is - and I am clearly not. I am a night owl. But you and I will have to get up early on AI World Tuesday. Why? Well, besides our patching talks there is one must-see talk unless you upgraded already all your…

AI World 2026: Don’t miss the PATCHING talks on Oct 26 and Oct 27 Are you coming to Oracle AI World 2026 in Las Vegas? Then this is for you. And no worries, we will not do a repeat session in Las Vegas only but also share the news and facts with you at the user group conferences such as DOAG and…

ORACLE_PDB_SID and AutoUpgrade Thanks to Rich for this one. I am not a fan of ORACLE_PDB_SID as it is highly error-prone. If you never heard about this environment variable, then stop reading here. You won't need to learn about it. But in case you are aware of it, then please see what happens when…

Oracle 23.26.3 may require a larger SGA than previous releases Another customer finding (thanks again, Dennis!). After patching from 23.26.1 or 23.26.2 to Oracle AI Database 23.26.3 Release Update, the database with minimal SGA sizing did not start up anymore. It resulted in ORA-821. After…

ORA-2380 profile ORA_STIG_PROFILE does not exist during upgrade to 26ai Let us start the week with something I wanted to put on the blog for a long time since I have seen some customers being trapped by this in their 26ai upgrade attempts. If you are not upgrading now, you may ignore this blog…

#SOUG was an amazing conference day in Zürich!!

AI World 2026: Upgrade, Migration and Patching Sessions Now it is your task. Mark your sessions for AI World 2026. Currently, the session schedule has been published. But the rooms aren't finalised yet. Why? Because we are counting favorite markers to be able to move sessions with high demand to…

Quick fix for download issues with AutoUpgrade 26.6 As you may have read, we launched the new AutoUpgrade 26.6 a week ago which has so many amazing enhancements such as the EM Patches download. But there may be two other hurdles to jump over, and one of them may prevent you from downloading…

Take special care on Oracle Text when you migrate with TTS Transportable Tablespaces or Full Transportable Export/Import are the common techniques you typically use when you are going to migrate larger databases from one operating system to a different one. Usually, a Endianness-change is…

Oracle AI Database 26ai isn’t planned for SPARC Solaris and Linux ARM Some of you have read this already. And others may not be happy about the news. You can read it in MOS Note PNEWS1360: Oracle AI Database 26ai isn't planned for SPARC Solaris and Linux ARM. Other platforms such as IBM AIX,…

New AutoUpgrade version 26.6 is available Yes, the long-awaited new AutoUpgrade version 26.6 is available for download. Again, a fantastic job by our development team. And I know that many of you were waiting for it already since it has some really cool new features, enhancements - and of course,…

CPSU on MS Windows conflicts with OJVM for 19.32 Several of you mailed me already, and I tried to sort this out internally at first. We ask you to patch monthly, and it is amazing to see that some of you are ready to do this. It just gets a bit frustrating when you run into an issue such as this…

Oracle Database 19c is supported on OL/RHEL 10 Many of you did wait for this - and since (I think) two weeks it is official. Oracle Database 19c is supported on OL/RHEL 10. Furthermore, I am going to show you how to find the certifications for Oracle AI Database 26ai since your search attempts may…

AI World 2026: Pre-Event Masterclass: Upgrade, Migration and Patching AI World this year in Las Vegas is going to happen in about 4.5 weeks from now on. In case you'll be there on Sunday (which makes perfect sense this year), you may want to consider signing up at AI World 2026: Pre-Event…

Are there security fixes included? Which CVEs? I received multiple questions from colleagues and customers over the past weeks regarding the security content in RUs and MRPs. See also my blog post from yesterday where I touched this topic briefly. The question regarding RUs, MRPS and CSPUs often…

Patching recommendations: Which route is the best? RUs, MRPs, n-1?? Be aware, this is a longer Monday blog post. Upfront, I am not the master of patching. And I clearly see that many of you struggle with the current situation. Not only regarding Oracle software but I guess, this extends to almost…

Why is the fix for bug nnn not included in any RU? Christian asked this question today. Specifically, in his case for Bug 26749785 - PERF_DIAG: NEED TO HAVE MORE CONTROL IN DICTIONARY FOR AUTO_STATS_ADVISOR_TASK. Several of his customers suffer from this issue, and they repeatedly need to ask for…

GI 19.31 and 19.32: trace file flooding in mgmtca.trc can happen Thanks to Peter Lehmann who always alerts me about findings and encounters he had in his test and production RAC cluster environments. Peter dropped me an email the other day, and I share his suspicion that this may effect many in…

Upgrade / Migration / Patching Workshops in Warsaw and Prague on Sep 7 and 8 Quick blog post today since we still have a few remaining seats open and available for next week for the Upgrade / Migration / Patching Workshops in Warsaw and Prague on Sep 7 and 8, 2026. Your chance to sign up now and…

Can I apply an RU to a home with an MRP? This question came up by a customer, and it was referring to the FAQ MOS note for MRPs. In brief, it was stated that you could apply a higher RU into a home where an MRP up to MRP3 had been installed in the previous home. So the question raised to me was:…

How to rollback an MRP You know, I am not a fan of in-place patching. Actually, I think everyone should always patch out-of-place. But I know that for instance EBS with a 19c database requires in-place patching, and out-of-place will be supported only with 26ai for EBS. Therefore, in relation to…

More clarifications on RUs, MRPs and CSPUs There are questions coming in from time to time, and I see that not everything can be always covered in an FAQ document. But we try our best. And sometimes, there are questions even I need to think twice before I answer. Here is the newest for More…

ORA-600 [] and ORA-8103 errors can happen after TTS Import into 19c This is not a new finding - and it is a very rare error. But you may only find it days, months or even years after a TTS migration has been completed. You may see a rare corruption issue, and it may sleep in your database. The…

LAOUC 2026: Paraguay, Brazil and Uruguay In a week from now I should arrive in Asuncion, Paraguay, if all goes well. It it time for the Latin America Oracle User Group tour 2026 - and it has been started already going from north to south. I will participate in three stops at LAOUC 2026: Paraguay,…

New AutoUpgrade version 26.5 is available (plus 26.4) I totally forgot to announce the 26.4 version of AutoUpgrade. And now, the new AutoUpgrade version 26.5 is available (plus 26.4) already. The AutoUpgrade Development team did an amazing job in shortening the release cycle. This way, we can…

Long-Term Release Updates are paused Since several customers asked me about it, I realized that I have never blogged about LTRUs - and as of now, Long-Term Release Updates are paused. Let me explain what the concept meant, where you can find information about it and what it would mean in your…

Join us in Bengaluru and Hyderabad for SANGAM 2026 Many of you may have seen the social media posts already. But just in case you were in doubt, please get your ticket asap and join us in Bengaluru and Hyderabad for SANGAM 2026 this weekend. AIOUG (All India Oracle User Group - or more modern, AI…

Upgrade to 26ai may hang due to block checking events This issue is caused by an internal change, and we hit this now with two very large customer upgrades recently. Therefore, I would like to point to a fix, a workaround and the following RU in case you see your Upgrade to 26ai may hang due to…

CDB upgrades – explaining catctl_options When you upgrade your entire CDB with AutoUpgrade, there is a parameter which allows you some tuning or tweaking. And I often see some misunderstanding here. Therefore, for CDB upgrades - explaining catctl_options is my focus today. catctl_options - what it…

AutoUpgrade Patching – From Zero to Hero – Part 4: Download Examples Let me take off into the 4th part of this blog post series: AutoUpgrade Patching – From Zero to Hero – Part 4: Download Examples. I'd like to show you some of the most common examples and use cases we came across. And of course,…

AutoUpgrade Patching – From Zero to Hero – Part 3: Download Patches You completed Part 1 and Part 2 of this blog post series already? Then you are ready for AutoUpgrade Patching - From Zero to Hero - Part 3: Download Patches. Let us start simple, and then increase the scope to fetch the patches…

AutoUpgrade Patching – From Zero to Hero – Part 2: MOS Credentials In this blog post series AutoUpgrade Patching - From Zero to Hero - Part 2: MOS Credentials will be our topic for today. If you are tired of going through MOS notes over and over again to identify the most important fixes and fetch…

@stefanoehrli.bsky.social shares about latest security improvements in 26ai #AOUG2026 #OracleACE

How to deal with statistics when you migrate? Have you done migration projects in the past, or do you have some upcoming projects, and you wonder how you should treat all sorts of statistics in your database? What is the better option? Keep and migrate the existing ones? Regather them right away?…

CPU, CSPU, MRP, RU – some clarifications I just returned from a 2 week vacation in Asia this weekend. And I was following from a distance. On May 28, the first CSPUs got released, some MOS notes got published. There are a lot of patching options now. CPU, CSPU, MRP, RU - some clarifications may be…

DBMS_OPTIM_BUNDLE – what it shows, and what oradiff lists I blogged multiple times about DBMS_OPTIM_BUNDLE, the package to work with the Fix Control Persistence (FCP) framework in the database. And we also gave recommendations over the years that you need to test carefully when you are going to…

Grid Infrastructure: Bye Tomcat – welcome Micronaut Anil Nair wrote it in his MAA Blog Post on April 28: "Oracle is simplifying the software stack by replacing Apache Tomcat application server with Micronaut framework.". And since some of you asked already, let me give you a bit more information…

Does OJVM patching fail again with ORA-1403 in 19.31? Some of you had been trapped by ORA-1403 during patching to Oracle Database 19.30. I blogged about this in February this year, and I had to update the blog post a few times until we collected all the issues. The root cause got fixed and…

RU 19.31 has been put on hold and will be available soon again Since several people mailed me yesterday and this morning about Release Update 19.31 been not available for download from My Oracle Support, here is a the explanation about why RU 19.31 has been put on hold and will be available soon…

Patch your databases against AI-enabled cybersecurity threats I guess you all read the announcements and predictions over the past weeks. New AI models and improvements to existing models may allow to find security issues in existing software much quicker. While this sounds alarming on one side…

April 2026 Release Updates (RUs) 19.31 and 23.26.2 are delayed Yesterday, I delivered a full-day workshop for ora2know in Düsseldorf. And we discussed the most recent RUs as well, especially since "Database Patching" consumed a significant part of the day content-wise. I learned that the RUs have…

Upcoming in-person workshops in Düsseldorf, London, Vienna, Utrecht and Brussels I am ready to take off for some vacation soon. But I'd like to share with you a list of the upcoming workshops we are offering. All those events are in-person events - except the Virtual Classroom Seminar I will list…

OCW 19.28 contains a tiny behavior change with DB_UNIQUE_NAME A colleague brought this to my attention the other week. And since the blog serves also as my partial memory, I wanted to put this out quickly. It is not a big deal, and most of you will never see this or be affected by it. Still, some…

Does AutoUpgrade support the MOVE option? Sometimes you have different plans for the day. Or, in my case, the day just needs a few extra hours. Today, I received a very interesting question on the blog at first by a customer I know very well. Then we exchanged mails - and I was caught by…

Sign up for the next Virtual Classroom Seminar: Patch Smarter, Not Harder Some of you may have realized: We moved the Virtual Classroom Seminar #27 from its original date in February to March 12 this week. Usually we don't do this - but we ended up with so much content. If you haven't already, it…

Don’t use AI to build your AutoUpgrade config file, please! Let me do a quick Friday rant. Many of you can easily ignore this. But regardless of whether you are a colleague, a friend, a customer, a partner or just exploring AutoUpgrade because it is the coolest small tiny little tool Oracle has to…