Databases Reference
In-Depth Information
•
Media error indicating that a data file is missing or damaged
•
Error indicating an issue with writing an archive redo log; for example,
ORA-19502: write error on file "/ora01/fra/o12c/archivelog/...
For a serious error message listed in the
alert.log
file, there is almost always a corresponding trace file. For
example, here is the accompanying message for the prior error message:
Errors in file /orahome/app/oracle/diag/rdbms/o12c/O12C/trace/O12C_ora_5665.trc
Inspecting the trace file will often (but not always) provide additional insight into the issue.
Viewing the Alert Log Using the ADRCI Utility
With Oracle Database 11g or higher, you can use the ADRCI utility to view the contents of the
alert.log
file. Run the
following command from the OS to start the ADRCI utility:
$ adrci
You should be presented with a prompt:
adrci>
Use the
SHOW ALERT
command to view the
alert.log
file:
adrci> show alert
If there are multiple Oracle homes on the server, then you will be prompted to choose which
alert.log
you want
to view. The
SHOW ALERT
command will open the
alert.log
with the utility that has been set as the default editor for
your OS. On Linux/Unix systems the default editor is derived from the OS
EDITOR
variable (which is usually set to a
utility such as
vi
).
■
When presented with the
alert.log
, if you are unfamiliar with
vi
, and want to exit, first press the escape key,
then press and hold down the shift key while pressing the colon (
:
) key. next, type
q!
. that should exit you out of the
vi
editor and back to the ADrCi prompt.
Tip
You can override the default editor within ADRCI, using the
SET EDITOR
command. This example sets the default
editor to
emacs
:
adrci> set editor emacs
You can view the last
N
number of lines in the
alert.log
with the
TAIL
option. The following command shows
the last 50 lines of the
alert.log
:
adrci> show alert -tail 50
