The patch directory area must be a number. - 10.1.3 R12

Question

Hi,
I am running an R12 vision instance. I need to apply a patch but whenever I try I get the error "The patch directory area must be a number.".
VIS121 r121@ebs121-vm /tmp/stage/15929270 $ pwd
/tmp/stage/15929270
VIS121 r121@ebs121-vm /tmp/stage/15929270 $ ls README*
README.html  README.txt
VIS121 r121@ebs121-vm /tmp/stage/15929270 $ echo $ORACLE_HOME
/oracle/r12/VIS121/apps/tech_st/10.1.3
VIS121 r121@ebs121-vm /tmp/stage/15929270 $ which opatch
/oracle/r12/VIS121/apps/tech_st/10.1.3/OPatch/opatch
VIS121 r121@ebs121-vm /tmp/stage/15929270 $ opatch apply
Oracle Interim Patch Installer version 1.0.0.0.64
Copyright (c) 2011 Oracle Corporation. All Rights Reserved..
Oracle recommends you to use the latest OPatch version
and read the OPatch documentation available in the OPatch/docs
directory for usage. For information about the latest OPatch and
other support-related issues, refer to document ID 293369.1
available on My Oracle Support (https://myoraclesupport.oracle.com)
Oracle Home           : /oracle/r12/VIS121/apps/tech_st/10.1.3
Oracle Home Inventory : /oracle/r12/VIS121/apps/tech_st/10.1.3/inventory
Central Inventory     : /home/r121/oraInventory
   from               : /etc/oraInst.loc
OUI location          : /oracle/r12/VIS121/apps/tech_st/10.1.3/oui
OUI shared library    : /oracle/r12/VIS121/apps/tech_st/10.1.3/oui/lib/linux/liboraInstaller.so
Java location         : /oracle/r12/VIS121/apps/tech_st/10.1.3/jre/1.4.2/bin/java
Log file location     : /oracle/r12/VIS121/apps/tech_st/10.1.3/.patch_storage/<patch ID>/*.log
The patch directory area must be a number.
ERROR: OPatch failed because of problems in patch area.
VIS121 r121@ebs121-vm /tmp/stage/15929270 $
VIS121 r121@ebs121-vm /tmp/stage/15929270 $ cat /etc/oraInst.loc
inventory_loc=/home/r121/oraInventory
#inventory_loc=/oracle/r12/EM_Agent/oraInventory
inst_group=dba
VIS121 r121@ebs121-vm /tmp/stage/15929270 $ cat ~/oraInventory/ContentsXML/
comps.xml      inventory.xml  libs.xml
VIS121 r121@ebs121-vm /tmp/stage/15929270 $ cat ~/oraInventory/ContentsXML/inventory.xml
<?xml version="1.0" standalone="yes" ?>
<!-- Copyright (c) 2002 Oracle Corporation. All rights Reserved -->
<!-- Do not modify the contents of this file by hand. -->
<INVENTORY>
<VERSION_INFO>
   <SAVED_WITH>10.1.0.6.0</SAVED_WITH>
   <MINIMUM_VER>2.1.0.6.0</MINIMUM_VER>
</VERSION_INFO>
<HOME_LIST>
<HOME NAME="VIS121_DB__oracle_r12_VIS121_db_tech_st_11_1_0" LOC="/oracle/r12/VIS121/db/tech_st/11.1.0" TYPE="O" IDX="1"/>
<HOME NAME="VIS121_WEBOH__oracle_r12_VIS121_apps_tech_st_10_1_3" LOC="/oracle/r12/VIS121/apps/tech_st/10.1.3" TYPE="O" IDX="2"/>
<HOME NAME="VIS121_WEBOH__oracle_r12_VIS121_apps_tech_st_10_1_2" LOC="/oracle/r12/VIS121/apps/tech_st/10.1.2" TYPE="O" IDX="3"/>
</HOME_LIST>
</INVENTORY>
VIS121 r121@ebs121-vm /tmp/stage/15929270 $
Can anyone help me here? I've tried re-downloading the patch, doing it with another patch etc but always the same. I am uploading the zip file to the server and unzipping using "unzip p....".
VIS121 r121@ebs121-vm /tmp/stage/15929270 $ uname -a
Linux ebs121-vm.us.oracle.com 2.6.18-164.11.1.0.1.el5 #1 SMP Wed Jan 20 01:49:42 EST 2010 i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux
VIS121 r121@ebs121-vm /tmp/stage/15929270 $
Thanks!

Answer 1

Hi,
There seems to be couple of reasons for this:
-This problem indicates that the patch is not extracted properly.
The patch was unzipped on a pc and transferred over to the server box.
The problem can also occur if the downloaded patch is corrupted .
-Opatch was not run from the correct patch directory. Once the patch is unzipped, the patch is then stored in the following example location:
\patches\p123456_9042_WINNT\123456\123456
Make sure that the patch location has write permissions to the user that is performing the patching.
Thanks,
Sharmela