Datapatch Failing on ORA-65108 (PDB$SEED): Applying Datapatch Manually

Problem

In a new 12c environment (which actually includes 18c and 19c, as per the 12c family), the datapatch failed on the following:

ORA-00704: bootstrap process failure
 ORA-00604: error occurred at recursive SQL level 1
 ORA-65108: invalid use of a cursor belonging to another container
 kpdbaKillPdbSessions: Starting kill.
 2019-01-29 07:09:21.486584 :kjcipctxinit(): (pid|psn)=(25|2): initialised and linked pctx 0x00007FFB1A7B49C8 into process list
 ORA-00704: bootstrap process failure
 ORA-00604: error occurred at recursive SQL level 1
 ORA-65108: invalid use of a cursor belonging to another container

Solution

Here, it's failing for the PDB$SEED. When upgrading, there are phases where you need the seed opened read-write. However, in general, you don’t do that yourself. The scripts to run in each container are called through catcon.pl which, by default, opens the seed read-write and ensures that the initial open mode is restored at the end (even in the event of an error). So, how do you manually proceed?

1. First, apply the datapatch to other PDBs using the -pdbs clause:

   ./datapatch -verbose -pdbs PDB1,PDB2

2. Open PDB$SEED for Oracle scripts:

   SYS@CDB$ROOT SQL> alter session set "_oracle_script"=true; 
    Session altered. 
    SYS@CDB$ROOT SQL> alter pluggable database pdb$seed open read write force; 
    Pluggable database PDB$SEED altered.

3. Apply the datapatch to the PDB$SEED:

   $ORACLE_HOME/OPatch/datapatch -verbose -pdbs ‘PDB$SEED’

4. Close PDB$SEED and mount it:

   SYS@CDB$ROOT SQL> alter session set container=PDB$SEED 
    Session altered. 
    SYS@CDB$ROOT SQL> shutdown immediate 
    Pluggable Database closed 
    ++ From Root 
    SYS@CDB$ROOT SQL> alter pluggable database PDB$SEED open read only;

I hope it helps, cheers!

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