Inventoryis the index for the oracle installation. All the details about theORACLE_HOME including different utility versions, patch details etc. Ifyou do a fresh Oracle installation the inventory will be updated. But ifyou copy the ORACLE binaries from some other location and if you arenot updating the inventory, we cannot read the inventory using opatchutility.It will give error. Here I am showing the steps to fix the oracle inventory. Please see. Step 1: checking the inventory of a corrupted database using opatch lsinventory utility and the result is an error. $ /oracle/milprod/oracle/product/11.1.0/OPatch/opatch lsinventory -invPtrLoc ./oraInst.locInvoking OPatch 11.1.0.6.9 Oracle Interim Patch Installer version 11.1.0.6.9Copyright (c) 2009, Oracle Corporation. All rights reserved. Oracle Home : /oracle/milprod/oracle/product/11.1.0Central Inventory : /oracle/milprod/oracle/product/11.1.0/inventory from : ./oraInst.locOPatch version : 11.1.0.6.9OUI version : 11.1.0.7.0OUI location : /oracle/milprod/oracle/product/11.1.0/ouiLog file location : /oracle/milprod/oracle/product/11.1.0/cfgtoollogs/opatch/opatch2011-06-15_01-40-34AM.log Patch history file: /oracle/milprod/oracle/product/11.1.0/cfgtoollogs/opatch/opatch_history.txt List of Homes on this system: Inventory load failed… OPatch cannot load inventory for the given Oracle Home.Possible causes are: Oracle Home dir. path does not exist in Central Inventory Oracle Home is a symbolic link Oracle Home inventory is corruptedLsInventorySession failed: OracleHomeInventory gets null oracleHomeInfo OPatch failed with error code 73oracle@prodserv(230) milprod /oracle/milprod/oracle/product/11.1.0 Step 2For safer side take a backup or move the current inventory to a new location. mv -i inventory inventory.old Step 3 Create a oraInst.loc (if not present already) file with following content in ORACLE_HOME directoryinventory_loc=/oracle/milprod/oracle/product/11.1.0/inventoryinst_group=dba Step 4 Run the following command to fix the inventory in Unix prompt from ORACLE_HOME direcotry $ORACLE_HOME/oui/bin/runInstaller-silent -invPtrLoc “/oracle/milprod/oracle/product/11.1.0/oraInst.loc”-attachHome ORACLE_HOME=”/oracle/milprod/oracle/product/11.1.0″ORACLE_HOME_NAME=”OraDb11g_home” $ORACLE_HOME/oui/bin/runInstaller -silent -invPtrLoc“/oracle/milprod/oracle/product/11.1.0/oraInst.loc” -attachHomeORACLE_HOME=”/oracle/milprod/oracle/product/11.1.0″ORACLE_HOME_NAME=”OraDb11g_home”Starting Oracle Universal Installer… Checking swap space: must be greater than 500 MB. Actual 21312 MB PassedPreparingto launch Oracle Universal Installer from/tmp/OraInstall2011-06-15_01-46-42AM. Please wait…oracle@prodserv(241) milprod/oracle/milprod/oracle/product/11.1.0/oui/bin$ The inventory pointer is located at /oracle/milprod/oracle/product/11.1.0/oraInst.locThe inventory is located at /oracle/milprod/oracle/product/11.1.0/inventory‘AttachHome’ was successful. Step 5 Now your corrupted Oracle inventory is fixed. Once again you check your inventory with opatch command.$ /oracle/milprod/oracle/product/11.1.0/OPatch/opatch lsinventory -invPtrLoc /oracle/milprod/oracle/product/11.1.0/or>Invoking OPatch 11.1.0.6.9 Oracle Interim Patch Installer version 11.1.0.6.9Copyright (c) 2009, Oracle Corporation. All rights reserved. Oracle Home : /oracle/milprod/oracle/product/11.1.0Central Inventory : /oracle/milprod/oracle/product/11.1.0/inventory from : /oracle/milprod/oracle/product/11.1.0/oraInst.locOPatch version : 11.1.0.6.9OUI version : 11.1.0.7.0OUI location : /oracle/milprod/oracle/product/11.1.0/ouiLog file location : /oracle/milprod/oracle/product/11.1.0/cfgtoollogs/opatch/opatch2011-06-15_01-49-21AM.log Patch history file: /oracle/milprod/oracle/product/11.1.0/cfgtoollogs/opatch/opatch_history.txt LsinventoryOutput file location :/oracle/milprod/oracle/product/11.1.0/cfgtoollogs/opatch/lsinv/lsinventory2011-06-15_01-49-21AM.txt ——————————————————————————–Installed Top-level Products (2): Oracle Database 11g 11.1.0.6.0Oracle Database 11g Patch Set 1 11.1.0.7.0There are 2 products installed in this Oracle Home. Interim patches (3) : Patch 9352179 : applied on Tue Aug 24 14:11:35 PDT 2010Unique Patch ID: 12335561 Created on 1 Apr 2010, 01:22:01 hrs PST8PDT Bugs fixed: 7378322, 9068088, 8348481, 9054253, 6851110, 7206858, 7497788, 8974548 7331867, 8251486, 8851675, 8211920, 9352179, 7013124, 7643188, 7135702 7529174, 7196532, 7515779, 7705669, 8402548, 8608377, 7119382, 7510766 9001453, 8364676, 9066130, 7424804, 7628387, 7408621, 7426336, 7553884 8856696, 6843972, 7694979, 8565708, 6972189, 6598432, 6768362, 6501490 8836375, 8216875, 7527650, 7719143, 8402551, 7454752, 8290478, 7412296 8402555, 7719148, 8284633, 8318050, 7639602, 8539335, 8613137, 7650993 8940197, 6970731, 7589862, 9170608, 7131291, 9109536, 7586451, 7446163 8199266, 7460818, 9114072, 6618461, 7451927, 7373196, 8230457, 7336031 7420394, 8413059, 8402562, 8914979, 8402637, 7393804, 8876094, 6196748 7627743, 7348847, 8408887, 7183523, 8531282, 7441663, 7720494, 7719668 8645846, 8539923, 9458811, 8534338, 8339404, 8236851, 9458814, 7602341 9458816, 7036453, 7610362, 8855553, 7384419, 7690421, 9458819, 8419383 8855559, 8543737, 7447559, 6772911, 7175513, 7341598, 7706138, 8243648 8367827, 8365141, 7350127, 9027691, 8549480, 8462173, 7356443, 7593835 8483871, 8242410, 7044551, 7572069, 7639121, 9458829, 8855565, 8825048 7253531, 8328853, 8341623, 8409848, 6851669, 7318276, 8257122, 7013817 8860821, 7309458, 8450529, 8306933, 8306934, 6840740, 9458831, 6981690 8304329, 8281906, 7480809, 8855570, 8339352, 7340448, 8499600, 7393258 8588540, 8790767, 8855575, 6599920, 7630416, 7426959, 8855577, 6980601 8342506, 8717461, 6452375, 8607693, 6407486, 7653579, 7416901, 7281382 8599477, 7535429, 8582594, 7475055, 8217795, 7409110, 7432514, 8362693 7436152, 7680907, 7013835, 7708340, 8499043, 8361398, 6784747, 7524944 7496908, 7662620, 8224083, 7385253, 9189647, 7225720, 6941717, 7122161 8898852, 8363210, 7477246, 7377810, 7299153, 9118620, 8213302, 8909984 9118622, 9209238, 8702276, 7497640, 6991626, 7630874, 7311909, 7432601 7213937, 7462112, 7352414, 7516867, 8199107, 7296258, 6812439, 6870937 7219752, 7263842, 8287680, 6900214, 8870559, 6882739, 8813366, 8990527 8352304, 7500792, 8352309, 7538000, 8834636, 8324760, 7652888, 7330434 7113299, 7307972, 8487273, 7462709, 7486595, 8650661, 9032717, 8658581 8244217, 7515145, 7499911, 7411865, 7276960, 8890026, 7432556, 7613481 7522002, 8674263, 7452373, 8221425, 9188010, 7438445, 7334226, 9197917 8284438, 7494333, 7318049, 8250643, 7834195, 8214576, 6679303, 8815639 8277580, 7715244, 7675269, 7516536, 8490879, 6980597, 8301559, 7499353 8496830, 7357609, 7462589, 6647480, 8416414, 7830065, 7189645, 7203349 8702535, 7436280, 6955744, 7506785, 7366290, 6977167, 8570572, 7702085 8348464, 7185872, 8625762, 6059178, 7257038, 8542307, 8833297, 8578132 7606362, 7330611, 8226397, 7628866, 6903819, 8391256, 7676737, 7258928 7829321, 7311601, 8433270, 7511040, 7434194, 8369094, 8563941, 8563942 8563943, 8563944, 8563945, 8563946, 7716219, 8563947, 7345904, 8563948 7556778, 8220734, 6870994, 7597354, 9135679, 7523787 Patch 7019661 : applied on Tue Aug 24 13:39:21 PDT 2010Unique Patch ID: 11132692.1 Created on 6 Apr 2009, 07:43:52 hrs US/Pacific Bugs fixed: 7019661 Patch 7394790 : applied on Wed Feb 24 11:48:28 PST 2010Unique Patch ID: 11678836 Created on 18 Aug 2009, 15:46:40 hrs PST8PDT Bugs fixed: 7394790 ——————————————————————————– OPatch succeeded.oracle@prodserv(242) milprod /oracle/milprod/oracle/product/11.1.0/oui/bin
