Re: update vs. install new

Nicole Böger <nicole.boeger_at_rexroth-mecman.de> wrote:

>I'm going to update ORACLE RDBMS V7.2.2.3 on SUN Solaris 2.4
>to RDBMS V7.3.2.3.
>Should I try an update or install new?
>

Hi,

Upgrade should be ok. I've just upgraded from 7.1.6 to 7.3.3 on Solaris 2.4 on a SparcELC with 64Mb. I had a few problems, but nothing too major, and they might be unique to my site anyway ( and, besides, you might still get the same problems with a fresh installation ).

For your info; here's the story:

Upgrading the tools/RDBMS and other executables took about 1hr.

Upgrading the objects in each database took about 2hr each ( don't know why it takes so long! ).

Got a ORA-7073 .... shmat error: unable to attach sga

when trying to start database. This was because the upgrade put the wrong value for the sga base address in $ORACLE_HOME/rdbms/lib/ksms.s. We took advice from Oracle WWCS and edited this file to put in the correct address and then ran make -f ins_rdbms.mk ioracle to remake the executables. Worked ok then. ( There's a utility on the distribution CDROM called shmat_check which tells you the correct address )

The standard packages didn't seem to have been installed properly, so we had to rerun $ORACLE_HOME/rdbms/admin/catproc.sql. ( I get the same problem with fresh installs. )

Users ( but not the Oracle owner ) seemed to have problems running various tools: the tools complained about missing library libucb.so.1. Solved this by creating a symbolic link from $ORACLE_HOME/lib/libucb.so.1 to /usr/ucblib/libucb.so.1. Never got to the bottom of this, because the link doesn't exist on another box where we installed 7.3.3 from scratch ( but that was on Solaris 2.5 ), but it worked.

Finally, had a few problems with SQL*Forms3 after upgrade. Solved this by manually re-installing Forms3 ( running iaddrop.sql, iadtable.sql and iadgrant.sql ). In light of this, it might be a good idea to check that you've got .inp copies of any forms saved in the database.

All the above sounds worse than it was. As I said, I'd still recommend upgrading: re-installing is probably more work, and won't guarantee that you won't have the same problems, or different ones!

HTH. Dave. Received on Mon Sep 08 1997 - 00:00:00 CDT