FRA changed but incremental RMAN disk backup failed

Question

This is a 11.1 test database.
There was a daily FRA RMAN backup scheduled from database control. Because of the filesystem space pressure we changed FRA destination to a new filesystem and removed old FRA directories.
But this time RMAN failed because it is trying to access the old files as base. How can I force RMAN to make a new base for daily incremental backup and not loose the already scheduled backup.
Thank you.
Connected to Oracle Database 11g Enterprise Edition Release 11.1.0.6.0
Connected as ODS
SQL> SELECT output FROM v$rman_output ORDER BY recid;
OUTPUT
connected to target database: OWB11 (DBID=373788874, not open)
using target database control file instead of recovery catalog
echo set on
run {
allocate channel oem_disk_backup device type disk;
recover
allocated channel: oem_disk_backup
channel oem_disk_backup: SID=688 device type=DISK
Starting recover at 12-JUL-08 02:01:13
no copy of datafile 5 found to recover
no copy of datafile 7 found to recover
no copy of datafile 8 found to recover
channel oem_disk_backup: starting incremental datafile backup set restore
channel oem_disk_backup: specifying datafile copies to recover
recovering datafile copy file number=00003 name=/dwh0/app/oracle/product/flash_r
channel oem_disk_backup: reading from backup piece /ods01/owb11/flash_recovery_a
OUTPUT
released channel: oem_disk_backup
RMAN-00571: ===========================================================
RMAN-00569: =============== ERROR MESSAGE STACK FOLLOWS ===============
RMAN-00571: ===========================================================
RMAN-03002: failure of recover command at 07/12/2008 02:01:14
ORA-19870: error while restoring backup piece /ods01/owb11/flash_recovery_area/O
ORA-19625: error identifying file /dwh0/app/oracle/product/flash_recovery_area/O
ORA-27037: unable to obtain file status
SVR4 Error: 2: No such file or directory
Additional information: 3
exit;
36 rows selected
SQL>

Answer 1

assuming you are using the Oracle provided backup procedure (you are pretty scarce on details) you need to make sure you don't have any backups (crosscheck backup and delete expired backup comes to mind), and run the procedure again. It will make a new level 0 backup and incrementals on the following days.
Please note if you don't use RMAN to clean up your O/S you will always ruin the RMAN catalog!!!
Sybrand Bakker
Senior Oracle DBA