Stale status of Redo log files...

Question

Hi ,
Why in the following sql results , the log file situated in group#3 is not stale as it is not currently used.....????
SQL> select * from v$log;
    GROUP#    THREAD#  SEQUENCE#      BYTES    MEMBERS ARCHIVED STATUS           FIRST_CHANGE# FIRST_TIME
         1          1        485   52428800          1 NO       CURRENT               14310098 17/05/2007
         2          1        483   52428800          1 NO       INACTIVE              14265944 16/05/2007
         3          1        484   52428800          1 NO       INACTIVE              14292318 17/05/2007
SQL>
SQL> select * from V$LOGFILE;
    GROUP# STATUS  TYPE    MEMBER                                                                           IS_RECOVERY_DEST_FILE
         3         ONLINE  C:\ORACLE\PRODUCT\10.2.0\ORADATA\EPESY\REDO03.LOG                                NO
         2 STALE   ONLINE  C:\ORACLE\PRODUCT\10.2.0\ORADATA\EPESY\REDO02.LOG                                NO
         1         ONLINE  C:\ORACLE\PRODUCT\10.2.0\ORADATA\EPESY\REDO01.LOG                                NONOTE : I use Oracle 10g v.2 on WinXp platform. The database is running in NOARCHIVELOG mode.
Many thanks,
Simon

Answer 1

The normal status is null (File is in use).
The stale status indicates a 'problem', as documentation part below:
A redo log file becomes INVALID if the database cannot access it. It becomes STALE if the database suspects that it is not complete or correct. A stale log file becomes valid again the next time its group is made the active group.