Upgrade from 11.2.0.1 to 11.2.0.2 issues

Question

Hello folks, I wonder if anyone can help me, this is driving me up the wall.
I've recently upgraded my database from 11.2.0.1 to 11.2.0.2 on a test database on Linux, using the DBUA.
I then tested the rollback by running the $ORACLE_SID_restore.sh script created during the initial upgrade process.
This seemed to go ok. Then I started noticing that when I logged in as sysdba it would tell me I was connected to an idle instance:
oracle@stage-ora1b:/home/oracle> sqlplus / as sysdba
SQL*Plus: Release 11.2.0.1.0 Production on Tue Feb 21 08:23:55 2012
Copyright (c) 1982, 2009, Oracle.  All rights reserved.
Connected to an idle instance.
SQL> select status from v$instance;
select status from v$instance
ERROR at line 1:
ORA-01034: ORACLE not available
Process ID: 0
Session ID: 0 Serial number: 0However, I could see that the oracle instance was running:
oracle@stage-ora1b:/home/oracle> ps -ef | grep smon
oracle   31890     1  0 05:00 ?        00:00:00 ora_smon_bvcloneand that when specifying the database name, everything appears to work.
oracle@stage-ora1b:/home/oracle> sqlplus ray@bvclone
SQL*Plus: Release 11.2.0.1.0 Production on Tue Feb 21 08:24:16 2012
Copyright (c) 1982, 2009, Oracle.  All rights reserved.
Enter password:
Connected to:
Oracle Database 11g Enterprise Edition Release 11.2.0.1.0 - 64bit Production
With the Partitioning, OLAP, Data Mining and Real Application Testing options
SQL> select * from v$version;
BANNER
Oracle Database 11g Enterprise Edition Release 11.2.0.1.0 - 64bit Production
PL/SQL Release 11.2.0.1.0 - Production
CORE     11.2.0.1.0     Production
TNS for Linux: Version 11.2.0.1.0 - Production
NLSRTL Version 11.2.0.1.0 - ProductionI've verified that I've got the right version of Oracle:
oracle@stage-ora1b:/home/oracle> env | grep ORA
ORACLE_SID=bvclone
ORACLE_BASE=/u01/app/database
ORACLE_HOSTNAME=stage-ora1b
ORACLE_HOME=/u01/app/database/product/11.2.0/db1
oracle@stage-ora1b:/home/oracle> which oracle
/u01/app/database/product/11.2.0/db1/bin/oracleHave I missed something obvious here? I don't see how I can't go in as sysdba, yet a named user can.
Any thoughts are much appreciated.
Thanks,
Ray

Answer 1

Hello Sybrand - thanks for the reply.
I think I may have solved the problem. After seeing the 'connected to an idle instance' message, I tried startup (something I should have done sooner!).
This gave me an ORA-01102 Cannot mount database in Exclusive mode error. Looking into it, I found this thread:
http://www.orafaq.com/forum/t/40030/0/
after which, I discovered that there were two lk[$ORACLE_SID] files, one in each of the ORACLE_HOME/dbs directories (pre and post upgrade folders).
So, I:
1. removed the lk[ORACLE_SID] file from the 11.2.0.2 folder (i.e. the version of Oracle I was downgrading).
2. Did a ps -ef | grep smon, and found 2 instances of the same db running.
3. Killed all db processes: kill -9 <pid>.
4. Restarted the database.
So far this seems to have worked. I'll close this thread tomorrow if the issue doesn't reappear, as this error took a little while to manifest itself.
Thanks,
Ray