Problem Exporting 'USER' Tablespace Metadata

Question

I am having problem using Data Pump Export to export the 'USERS' tablespace metadata.
When I make the USERS tablespace read only and run the Data Export job, the job aborts with "ORA-01647: tablespace 'USERS' is read only, cannot allocate space in it."
But then when I make the USERS tablespace read and write, the job aborts with "ORA-29335: tablespace 'USERS' is not read only."
I've been caught in this CATCH-22 for the 2nd day now, and I could really use some help. I'm on a Windows 32 platform running Oracle 10g, and here is a copy of the Data Pump Export script/command that I am running at the operating system prompt, which works fine for other tablespaces' metadata, like 'EXAMPLE':
$ expdp myusername/**mypassword* TRANSPORT_TABLESPACES=users TRANSPORT_FULL_CHECK=Y DIRECTORY=dtpump DUMPFILE=expdp_users.dmp logfile=expdp_users.log
Thanks!

Answer 1

Hi,
The problem is that the datapump creates a table called the master table. It creates this in the schema running the job. If this schema has a default tablespace that you are trying to transport, then this won't work. You will have to use a different schema that does not use the set of tablespaces that you are transporting, or alter the use that is running the datapump job to have a different default tablespace.
So, basically, datapump requires write access to the tablesspace that the user uses and transportable requires the tablespace to be read only.
If it were me, I would do this:
sqlplus username/password
alter user username default tablespace system;
exit
run your expdp command
sqlplus username/password
alter user username default tablespace orig_tablespace;
exit
Dean