Databases Reference
In-Depth Information
Reinstalling After Failed Installation
You may run into a situation in which you're attempting to install Oracle, and for some reason the installation fails.
You correct the issue and attempt to rerun the Oracle installer. However, you receive this message:
CAUSE: The chosen installation conflicted with software already
installed in the given Oracle home.
ACTION: Install into a different Oracle home.
In this situation, Oracle thinks that the software has already been installed, for a couple of reasons:
ORACLE_HOME
directory are specified in the response file.
•
Files in the
oraInventory/ContentsXML/inventory.xml
file
match what you have specified in the response file.
•
An existing Oracle home and location in your
Oracle doesn't allow you to install a new set of binaries over an existing Oracle home. If you're sure you don't
need any of the files in the
ORACLE_HOME
directory, you can remove them (be very careful—ensure that you absolutely
want to do this). This example navigates to
ORACLE_HOME
and then removes the
db_1
directory and its contents:
$ cd $ORACLE_HOME
$ cd ..
$ rm -rf db_1
Also, even if there are no files in the
ORACLE_HOME
directory, the installer inspects the
inventory.xml
file for
previous Oracle home names and locations. In the
inventory.xml
file you must remove the entry corresponding to
the Oracle home location that matches the Oracle home you're trying to install to. To remove the entry, first, locate
your
oraInst.loc
file, which contains the directory of your
oraInventory
. Next, navigate to the
oraInventory/
ContentsXML
directory. Make a copy of
inventory.xml
before you modify it:
$ cp inventory.xml inventory.xml.old
Then, edit the
inventory.xml
file with an OS utility (such as
vi
), and remove the line that contains the Oracle
home information of your previously failed installation. You can now attempt to execute the
runInstaller
utility
again.
Applying Interim Patches
Sometimes, you're required to apply a patch to resolve a database issue or eradicate a bug. You can usually obtain
patches from the MOS web site and install them with the
opatch
utility. Here are the basic steps for applying a patch:
1.
Obtain the patch from MOS (requires a valid support contract).
2.
Unzip the patch file.
Carefully read the
README.txt
file for special instructions.
3.
4.
Shut down any databases and processes using the Oracle home to which the patch is being
applied.
5.
Apply the patch.
6.
Verify that the patch was installed successfully.
