Is Your Oracle AI Database Ready For Patching?

Patching 2 Minutes

My colleagues enhanced Datapatch so it can check your Oracle AI Database and see if it’s prone to errors we’ve seen at other customers.

This check is called a Datapatch Sanity Check.

It is a lightweight and non-intrusive check that scans an Oracle AI Database and produces a report with findings.

How to Run a Sanity Check

  • Before patching, assess the patching readiness of your Oracle AI Database:
    export ORACLE_SID=ORCL
cd $ORACLE_HOME/OPatch
./datapatch -sanity_checks
    • You can run the check on an active database.
    • The check scans the operating system, database and all open PDBs.
  • Datapatch prints the report on the screen. Examine it:
    SQL Patching sanity checks version 19.27.0.0.0 on Fri 12 Jun 2026 03:25:42 PM GMT
Copyright (c) 2021, 2026, Oracle.  All rights reserved.

Log file for this invocation: /u01/app/oracle/cfgtoollogs/sqlpatch/sanity_checks_20260612_152542_17281/sanity_checks_20260612_152542_17281.log

Running checks
JSON report generated in /u01/app/oracle/cfgtoollogs/sqlpatch/sanity_checks_20260612_152542_17281/sqlpatch_sanity_checks_summary.json file
Checks completed. Printing report:

Check: Database component status - OK
Check: PDB Violations - OK
Check: Invalid System Objects - OK
Check: Tablespace Status - OK
Check: Backup jobs - OK
Check: Temp file exists - OK
Check: Temp file online - OK
Check: Data Pump running - OK
Check: Container status - OK
Check: Oracle Database Keystore - OK
Check: Dictionary statistics gathering - OK
Check: Scheduled Jobs - OK
Check: GoldenGate triggers - OK
Check: Logminer DDL triggers - OK
Check: Check sys public grants - OK
Check: Statistics gathering running - OK
Check: Optim dictionary upgrade parameter - OK
Check: Symlinks on oracle home path - OK
Check: Central Inventory - OK
Check: Queryable Inventory dba directories - OK
Check: Queryable Inventory locks - OK
Check: Queryable Inventory package - OK
Check: Queryable Inventory external table - OK
Check: Imperva processes - OK
Check: Guardium processes - OK
Check: Locale - OK

Refer to MOS Note 2975965.1 and debug log
/u01/app/oracle/cfgtoollogs/sqlpatch/sanity_checks_20260612_152542_17281/sanity_checks_debug_20260612_152542_17281.log

SQL Patching sanity checks completed on Fri 12 Jun 2026 03:26:18 PM GMT
    • All checks passed.

Usage Notes

  • The checks may give the following result:

    • OK
    • WARNING
    • ERROR

  • Datapatch exit codes:

    • 0 – All checks passed
    • 1 – Errors found
    • 2 – Warnings found

  • If the database is an Oracle RAC Database, Datapatch also connects to the other nodes to conduct scanning. This requires passwordless SSH between the nodes.

  • The Sanity Check doesn’t check whether patches need to be applied or not. To determine whether patches need to be installed in the database, use:

    ./datapatch -prereq

That’s It

Checking your database upfront will help you avoid some of the common pitfalls when installing patches.

Happy patching!

Further Reading

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