Switchover_status "FAILED DESTINATION" on both primary-standby databases

Question

Hi,
I setup primary-standby databases and try to test the switchover functionality between them using the following commands:
alter database commit to switchover to primary with session shutdown;
alter database commit to switchover to physical standby with session shutdown;
Currently, both DBs are showing
open_mode= READ WRITE for "select open_mode_from v$database;" and
switchover_status = FAILED DESTINATION for "select switchover_status from v$database"
When both databases get into these states, how can I return them back to primary and standby roles? Could you please provide me a sequence of steps that I can execute to return them back to normal primary-standby states?
Thanks in advance for your suggestion.

Answer 1

The OS is Red hat 4.1.2-500.
Oracle version is 11g.
Here is the sequence of steps that lead to this issue:
1. switchover_status on primary = to standby, switchover_status on secondary = not allowed
So on primary, I execute
alter database commit to switchover to physical standby with session shutdown;
and could be shutdown/startup mount ( I don't remember exactly)
2. switchover_status on secondary = to primary
So on secondary, I execute
alter database commit to switchover to primary with session shutdown;
alter database open;
3. Now on secondary, the switchover_status = FAILED DESTINATION
On primary, I execute
alter database commit to switchover to primary with session shutdown;
and could be "alter database open" ( I don't remember exactly)
The switchover_status in step 1) and 2) above should indicates that the data guard is working. At the end of the above steps, I cause both databases to get into switchover_status = "FAILED DESTINATION".
I hope to get one of the DBs back into standby role.
If I execute "alter database commit to switchover to physical standby with session shutdown", I will get
"ORA-16416: No viable Physical Standby switchover targets available"
In this situation, is there any recommendation for rescue?