2026-11-05 - Grid Infrastructure patching may fail if FlashGrid ASM service is not stopped before patching – FlashGrid Help Center

Summary

The documented FlashGrid procedures for applying Grid Infrastructure (GI) patches include stopping flashgrid_asm.service on each node before patching it. If you follow these procedures, you are not affected by this issue and no action is required.

With FlashGrid Storage Fabric software versions earlier than 26.08, if the step to stop flashgrid_asm.service is skipped, applying a GI patch with OPatchAuto may fail. If the patch is applied successfully while the service is running, the service may stop working correctly and the node may be reported as inaccessible.

Symptoms

The symptoms below occur only when a GI patch is applied while flashgrid_asm.service is running on the node being patched.

OPatchAuto fails during the binary patching phase, after CRS has already been stopped on the node:

Start applying binary patch on home /u01/app/19.3.0/grid

Failed while applying binary patches on home /u01/app/19.3.0/grid
...
Reason:
Failed during Patching: oracle.opatch.opatchsdk.OPatchException:
Prerequisite check "CheckActiveFilesAndExecutables" failed.

The details are:

Following active files/executables/libs are used by ORACLE_HOME :/u01/app/19.3.0/grid

/u01/app/19.3.0/grid/lib/libclntsh.so.19.1
/u01/app/19.3.0/grid/lib/libasmclntsh19.so
...
OPATCHAUTO-68061: The orchestration engine failed.

If GI patching completes successfully while flashgrid_asm.service is running, the patched node may be shown as Inaccessible in the flashgrid-cluster output.

Affected Products

FlashGrid Cluster on AWS/Azure/Google Cloud

FlashGrid Server on AWS/Azure/Google Cloud

FlashGrid Storage Fabric (on-premises)

Affected Versions

flashgrid-sf RPM versions earlier than 26.08 are affected. To confirm the version of the installed flashgrid-sf RPM, run:

rpm -q flashgrid-sf

First Unaffected Versions

26.08 and above are unaffected.

Root Cause

flashgrid_asm.service connects to the local ASM instance using Oracle client libraries from the GI home. The libraries remain loaded by the flashgrid_asm process after CRS and ASM are stopped. OPatch does not allow patching a home whose files are in use, so the CheckActiveFilesAndExecutables prerequisite check fails. This is why the documented patching procedures require stopping flashgrid_asm.service before applying a GI patch.

Starting with version 26.08, flashgrid_asm.service detects when the local ASM instance stops and releases the GI libraries automatically.

Workaround

For flashgrid-sf versions earlier than 26.08

Follow the documented patching procedure in Applying Grid Infrastructure and Database patches or Out of Place (OOP) Patching. The procedure already includes stopping flashgrid_asm.service before applying a GI patch on each database node and starting it after patching on that node is complete:

Before applying the GI patch on the node:
```
# systemctl stop flashgrid_asm.service
```
Apply the GI patch on the node.
After the GI patch is applied on the node:
```
# systemctl start flashgrid_asm.service
```

If OPatchAuto already failed with the error above

Stop the service and resume patching:

# systemctl stop flashgrid_asm.service
# $GRID_HOME/OPatch/opatchauto resume

After patching is complete, start the service with systemctl start flashgrid_asm.service.

If GI patching was completed while the service was running

Restart the service on the patched node:

# systemctl restart flashgrid_asm.service

If the node is still shown as Inaccessible in the flashgrid-cluster output, contact FlashGrid Support.

Resolution

Cloud environments: update FlashGrid software to version 26.08 or newer using the FlashGrid Node Update package.
FlashGrid Storage Fabric (on-premises): update the flashgrid-sf RPM to version 26.08 or newer.

With version 26.08 or newer, the issue does not occur even if flashgrid_asm.service is left running during GI patching.