Tag: sanity checks

Is Your Oracle AI Database Ready For Patching?

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