Summary
Oracle Database instance fails to start with ORA-29707 after applying DB RU 19.21.0.0.231017 (October'23).
Symptoms
RAC DB instances fail to start after applying DB RU 19.21:
SQL> startup ORA-29707: inconsistent value 5 for initialization parameter 5178 with other instances
Affected Products
FlashGrid Cluster on AWS/Azure/GCP
Affected Versions
Oracle Database Enterprise Edition 19.21.0.0.231017 (both non-CDB and CDB databases, RAC)
Root Cause
Oracle changed the default value of the MAX_PDBS parameters in DB RU 19.21 from 254 (DB RU 19.20) to 5 (DB RU 19.21).
When a patched DB instance tries to start, Oracle checks that the MAX_PDBS parameter has the same value across all nodes of the cluster. Since non-patched DB instances have a different value (254) of the parameter, the ORA-29707 error is thrown.
Workaround
-
Obtain the current value of the MAX_PDBS parameter:
SQL> show parameter max_pdbs NAME TYPE VALUE ------------------------------------ ----------- ------------------------------ max_pdbs integer <value>
-
Explicitly set the MAX_PDBS parameter to that value to make sure it has an identical value across all instances (in case of a container database, set the parameter in CDB$ROOT):
alter system set max_pdbs=<value> sid='*' scope=spfile;
Note 1: MAX_PDBS must be set before applying DB RU 19.21.
Note 2: Oracle Licensing policy may require limiting the number of PDBs per CDB.
Resolution
Apply Database Release Update 19.21.0.0.231017 in combination with DB patch 33952089.