Inst_loc inventory pointer missing on second node in RAC

Question

Hi,
I have installed Clusterware 11.1.0.6 on Windows 2003 on two nodes and I'd like to patch it to 11.1.0.7. However, when calling "opatch lsinventory -all" I noticed that it works on the first node (the node where the installation was performed), but doesn't work on the second node:
C:\product\11.1.0\crs\OPatch>opatch lsinventory -all
Invoking OPatch 11.1.0.6.0
Oracle Interim Patch Installer version 11.1.0.6.0
Copyright (c) 2007, Oracle Corporation.  All rights reserved.
Oracle Home       : C:\product\11.1.0\crs
Central Inventory : n/a
   from           : n/a
OPatch version    : 11.1.0.6.0
OUI version       : 11.1.0.6.0
OUI location      : C:\product\11.1.0\crs\oui
Log file location : C:\product\11.1.0\crs\cfgtoollogs\opatch\opatch2010-11-28_10-22-19AM.log
OPatch cannot find a valid oraInst.loc file to locate Central Inventory.
OPatch failed with error code = 104
C:\product\11.1.0\crs\OPatch>I checked in the registry key "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\ORACLE" on both nodes and found out that the first node has an inventory pointer "inst_loc" wich points to "C:\Program Files\Oracle\Inventory", but on the second node this value is missing. If I manually set it on the second node, then "opatch lsinventory" works but I'm not sure if it's ok to set it manually?
I also checked the documentation and here http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/B28359_01/em.111/b31207/oui5_cluster_environment.htm#OUICG267 it says: "After you click Next, the Oracle Universal Installer checks whether the remote inventories are set. If they are not set, the Oracle Universal Installer sets up the remote inventories by setting registry keys." So I suppose the registry key should exist also on the second node?
Thanks in advance for any answers.
Regards,
Jure

Answer 1

Hi, mmm ... looks like remote operations fail during the installation process. Possible reasons for this error could be either a missing oraInst.loc file or permission issues with oraInst.loc file. Ensure user have read/write priviligies on orainst.loc file as well as on the actual path of orainventory location. If you could not fix the issue and if you know the inventory location you may want try following solution: "opatch apply -invPtrLoc C:\mypath\mypath\oraInst.loc" where "mypath" should be replaced by your windows locations. Also review you have all the oracle binaries in the 2nd. node.
Edited by: Jose Valerio on Nov 28, 2010 2:21 PM
Edited by: Jose Valerio on Nov 28, 2010 2:21 PM