Database Crashes With ORA-221, ORA-206, ORA-202, ORA-27072 [ID 332867.1]

 
Modified 30-SEP-2010     Type PROBLEM     Status PUBLISHED
 

In this Document
  Symptoms
  Cause
  Solution
  References

Applies to:
Oracle Server - Enterprise Edition - Version: 10.2.0.1 to 10.2.0.1 - Release: 10.2 to 10.2
Oracle Server - Enterprise Edition - Version: 10.1.0.2 to 10.1.0.4   [Release: 10.1 to 10.1]
IBM AIX on POWER Systems (64-bit)
AIX5L Based Systems (64-bit)



***Checked for relevance on 30-SEP-2010***
Symptoms
Possible database crashes with error 221 unable to write to controlfile on AIX 5L. The error stack that is generated is:

ORA-00221: error on write to controlfile
ORA-00206: error in writing (block 3, # blocks 1) of controlfile
ORA-00202: controlfile: '/u03/oradata/paimg/control03.ctl'
ORA-27072: File I/O error
IBM AIX RISC System/6000 Error: 22: Invalid argument
Additional information: 7


Cause
BUG 4401119 - Database Down With Controlfile Corruption

Impact:

The database impact is severe since it causes the database to crash. In addition this error is usually the result of a resource exhaustion. So once it is encountered it is more than likely that this problem will be encountered again on the production system.
Solution
Workaround:
None. However the default server settings for AIX are:
MINIMUM number of servers                          [1]
MAXIMUM number of servers per cpu            [100]
Maximum number of  REQUESTS                  [4096]
 
This problem is improved slightly by changing the above values to something like:
MINIMUM number of servers (minservers)                [64]
MAXIMUM number of servers per cpu(maxservers)  [256]
Maximum number of REQUESTS (maxreqs)             [8192]
Solution:
Apply patch for bug 4401119