Problems with DUPLICATE DATABASE when datafile was added after full backup

Question

Hi,
I'm facing a problem when performing database duplication with the RMAN duplicate database command on a 10g database. If I preform the duplication from a full backup that is missing a datafile which was added to the database after the full backup, I get the following error message:
Starting restore at 10-10-2009 18:00:38
released channel: t1
released channel: t2
RMAN-00571: ===========================================================
RMAN-00569: =============== ERROR MESSAGE STACK FOLLOWS ===============
RMAN-00571: ===========================================================
RMAN-03002: failure of Duplicate Db command at 10/10/2009 18:00:39
RMAN-03015: error occurred in stored script Memory Script
RMAN-06026: some targets not found - aborting restore
RMAN-06100: no channel to restore a backup or copy of datafile 43The redo log which was CURRENTat the time of the datafile's 43 creation is also available in the backups. It seems like RMAN can't use the information from the archived redo logs to reconstruct the contents of datafile 43. I suppose that because the failure is reported already in the RESTORE and not in the RECOVER phase, so the archived redo logs aren't even accessed yet. I get the same message even if I make a separate backup of datafile 43 (so a backup that is not in the same backupset as the backup of all other datafiles).
From the script the duplicate command produces, I guess that RMAN reads the contents of the source database's controlfile and tries to get a backup which contains all the datafiles to restore them on the auxiliary database - if such a backup is not found, it fails.
Of course if I try to perform a restore/recover of the source database it works without problems:
RMAN> restore database;
Starting restore at 13.10.09
using target database control file instead of recovery catalog
allocated channel: ORA_DISK_1
channel ORA_DISK_1: sid=156 devtype=DISK
creating datafile fno=43 name=F:\ORA10\ORADATA\SOVDEV\SOMEDATAFILE01.DBF
channel ORA_DISK_1: starting datafile backupset restore
channel ORA_DISK_1: specifying datafile(s) to restore from backup set
restoring datafile 00001 to F:\ORA10\ORADATA\SOVDEV\SYSTEM01.DBF
.....The datafile 43 is recreated and then redo is applied over.
So, does anyone know if duplicate database can't use archived redo logs to recreate the contents of a datafile as a normal restore/recover does? If it's so, then it means it's necessary to perform a full database backup before every run of duplicate database if a datafile was added after such a backup.
Thanks in advance for any answers.
Regards,
Jure

Answer 1

Hi Jure,
I have hit exactly the same problem during duplication.
Because we backup the archive logs every 6 hours with rman I added an extra run block to this script.
run
backup incremental level 0
format 'bk_%d_%s_%p_%t'
filesperset 4
database not backed up;
(I also than hit a bug in the catalog which was solved by patching up the catalog dbs from 11.1.0.6 to 11.1.0.7.)
This will narrow down the datafile not being part of any rman backup to 6 hours while skipping datafiles for which a backup already exists.
Regards,
Tycho