Wednesday, March 23, 2016

R12.1.3 Workflow: Notification preferences are being set to DISABLED

The My Oracle Support article ID 1588209.1 for "Notification Preference Gets Set To DISABLED" appears to be from 2012 or 2013, but appears to still be relevant as there are several patches which need to be applied AND you can find a pattern in the Notification Mailer log files which can be monitored for!

Tuesday, March 22, 2016

R12.1.3 Assets: YTD depreciation is calculated wrong at year end while posting impairment

On EBS R12.1.3 when you get to year-end you might have to find out that Assets cannot be completed due to "YTD Depreciation Is Calculated Wrongly When Posting Impairment in the End of the Year" from MOS note ID 2119515.1 so why not apply the patch or test now just to make sure you do not find yourself in this situation right at year-end?

Monday, March 21, 2016

Oracle Linux: Windows AD or LDAP server cannot authenticate due to TLS error

While the My Oracle Support article "OL 6 & 7 - Unable to Authenticate to Windows AD or LDAP Server "Could not start TLS encryption. unknown error"" from ID 2109478.1 may not be relevant if you are not changing your configuration, you may have to know this when you decide to do an upgrade so check this out!

Sunday, March 20, 2016

Weekend Learning: Enabling data encryption for Oracle Payments module in R12

If you have upgraded to R12, or have a plan to do so, make sure you read MOS document "How To Enable Oracle Payments Data Encryption Functionality" from document ID 1301337.1 to learn how to get on the middle tier, create an Oracle Wallet .p12 file, and what concurrent requests you need to be running as well depending on what profile options you choose for the encryption method.

Saturday, March 19, 2016

Weekend Learning: Background information on using 4k redo logs on Flash and SSD-based storage devices

Check out MOS document "Using 4k Redo Logs on Flash and SSD-based Storage" from note 1681266.1 to get details about using 4k storage media like Flash and SSD to see how they can be logically setup or used in hybrid situations to avoid misaligned I/O issues!

Friday, March 18, 2016

11gR2: Connections fail with ORA-12560 while SSL_VERSION is set to TLS 1.1 or 1.2

If you are getting ready to upgrade to 11.2.0.4 or if you are on that database version and need to change TLS settings, you really need to read My Oracle Support document "11.2.0.4 Connections Fail With ORA-12560 When Using TLS 1.1 or 1.2 (By Setting SSL_VERSION In Sqlnet.ora)" as a bundle patch needs to be applied to get the connections working!

Thursday, March 17, 2016

Exadata: Flash Cache Compression on X3 and X4 Storage Servers causing disk drive failures

Check what version of software you have on your Storage Servers immediately due to the bug listed in "(EX28) High risk of data loss on X3 or X4 Exadata storage when flash compression is enabled and running late 2015 or early 2016 software release" MOS article ID 2115005.1 which currently has NO solution!  There is a workaround listed, but that is turning off the Flash Cache Compression which will likely negatively affect the performance of your Exadata application and Oracle gives some great advice about proceeding with caution if you are planning upgrading!

Wednesday, March 16, 2016

R12.2.4 Payables: Payments form has performance issue

I have talked about XLA slowness in Payables before, but the My Oracle Support note "R12: AP: Performance Issue With Payments Form (APXPAWKB)" from article 2117534.1 has no hooks into XLA but still has a performance issue due to indexes that appear to be missing or incomplete on AP_INVOICES_ALL!

Tuesday, March 15, 2016

R12.2.4 Receivables: Create Accounting errors due to imbalanced CM application distributions

Although MOS document "Create Accounting Completed With Error (319) Unbalanced Distributions of CM Application" from article ID 2116697.1 does not give you an exact issue or resolution, it may help you to build some proactive alerting around an imbalance in credit and debit entries in AR_DISTRIBUTIONS_ALL.

Monday, March 14, 2016

Backups can completely age out of the Zero Data Loss Recovery Appliance

With a name like Zero Data Loss Recovery Appliance, one would think every scenario had been thought of which Oracle would prevent against right?  Well not so fast!  Read the article on MOS "(RA10) Bug 22378407 : BACKUPS WILL AGE OUT COMPLETELY IF ONE STOPS CREATING THEM" from note ID 2112880.1 which seems to be half process issue, and half bug since it doesn't prevent this from happening!

Sunday, March 13, 2016

Weekend Learning: Required/recommended bundle patches and patch sets for OBIEE 11g

If you are running an Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition platform do yourself a favor and add the article "OBIEE 11g: Required and Recommended Bundle Patches and Patch Sets" to your favorites list in MOS via document ID 1488475.1 to keep on top of changes!!

Saturday, March 12, 2016

Weekend Learning: Master reference note for "CPU time" wait events

If you have ever looked at what your database is doing in either a real time fashion, or via ASH/ADDM reports, then you have obviously seen wait events referencing the CPU and that does not mean there is a problem with the CPU or even with the database, but for the times when you are not sure make sure you have favorited the document ""DB CPU" / "CPU + Wait for CPU" / "CPU time" Reference Note" in My Oracle Support note 1965757.1 so you have a one-stop shop at your fingertips!  This would also be useful too, if you wanted to utilize it to check out possible issues when upgrading your database version or adding new features!

Friday, March 11, 2016

R12 Payables: JBO-25013 error is thrown when selecting supplier relationship

A few months ago there was an article I put up about several IBY tables and article "R12.1:22878464:Error JBO-25013 On Supplier When Selected The Supplier Relationship Tab" on My Oracle Support via document number 2115923.1 was just solved today but what I think is important from this is finding out a new IBY table AND another instance of something that needs to be added to your testing suites!

Thursday, March 10, 2016

Exadata: CellCLI "list activerequest" command can produce I/O hang in Storage Server

Do not miss out on applying the patch to resolve the issue described in the MOS article "(EX27) Database IO may hang when CellCLI command "list activerequest" is executed on an Exadata Storage Server" from note ID 2095255.1 so your system is not subject to this if you ever need to run the command in an Exadata machine!

Wednesday, March 9, 2016

R12 Payables: Invoice Mass Additions Diagnostics

Make sure you have installed the diagnostic from My Oracle Support document 1162973.1 "R12.1 Mass Additions Diagnostics" so you can find out why something did not transfer from the Payables module in EBS over to the Assets module!

Tuesday, March 8, 2016

Exadata: Oracle Enterprise Manager shows Management Server is DOWN but ping shows SUCCESS

With MOS document "EXADATA:OEM errors MS Status is DOWN and Ping Status is SUCCESS" from note ID 2112971.1 we learn that in Exadata Cell server software 12.1.2.2.0 the ipconf utility restarts the Management Server and that since ipconf runs with Exachk the MS gets restarts every time you run Exachk!  Seems like a problem huh?  The good news is that cellsrv does not actually go down, so there is no service interruption, but this is something you may need to know for your next patch application!

Monday, March 7, 2016

R12: Programs complete in Warning due to "Output Post-processor is Running But Has Not Picked up This Request"

Article "R12: Various Programs End With Warning: The Output Post-processor is Running But Has Not Picked up This Request" in My Oracle Support refers to R12.0.6 in document ID 1224684.1 BUT has a lot of information about the setup of the Concurrent Manager and Output Post Processor so it is a good one to read up on even if you know about this and have patched to help prevent the issue from happening!

Sunday, March 6, 2016

Weekend Learning: What APIs and programming languages can be used to make a connection to an Oracle DB?

While not directly on point for somebody in an application support role, you may need to know the information within MOS document "Oracle Client API's that can be used to access an Oracle database." from article ID 739169.1 so take a moment to brush up on your knowledge!

Saturday, March 5, 2016

Exadata: InfiniBand may fail to send messages to cause I/O failures on Oracle VM

If you are running Exadata on Oracle VM, you need to look at the article "(EX26) Messages over the InfiniBand network may fail to send causing IO failures and hangs when using Exadata OVM with Exadata cell version 12.1.2.1.3" in My Oracle Support from note ID 2105407.1 as there is a pretty straightforward way to resolve this, even if it might not be the kind of solution you are looking for!

Friday, March 4, 2016

R12 Payables: Vendor and vendor sites can be updated post merge

The My Oracle Support article "R12: Payables: Merged Vendor and Vendor Sites can be Updated in Supplier Entry Screen" via document ID 2107797.1 talks about what happens when vendor sites can be updated after being merged and an error is thrown when trying to merge it again.  Also, I learned about the table AP_DUPLICATE_VENDORS_ALL which will let you know if a vendor has ever been merged before and with the data pattern described in the document could give you a chance to build a proactive alert!

Thursday, March 3, 2016

ZFS Storage Appliance on Solaris could have transient write hangs due to snapshot actions

Tonight from My Oracle Support "Solaris 10, Solaris 11 and ZFS Storage Appliance (ZFSSA) Software may Intermittently Experience Transient Write Hangs if a Snapshot Destroy or Replication is in Progress" in document ID 2067174.1 is a pretty straightforward article that you need to be reading if you are on these Solaris platforms as this could happen at any time due to the type of actions being taken which are automatic!

Wednesday, March 2, 2016

R12.1 RPCs Superseded Again

Back in 2014 I posted a short post about Recommended Patch Collections being superseded for many modules and starting with My Oracle Support note 2102716.1 for "EBS: R12.1: Receivables Recommended Patch Collection (RPC), Feb 2016" you can find other RPCs but an even better idea is to add the document "EBS: R12.1 Latest Oracle Financials Recommended Patch Collections (RPCs)" from article ID 954704.1 to your favorites list in MOS.  This way when there are future updates, you can always stay up to date!

Tuesday, March 1, 2016

ANNOUNCEMENT: Arizona/New Mexico OAUG Geographic Region

Tonight I return from a short sabbatical to let you know that a new Geo has been formed by OAUG to represent the Arizona and New Mexico region, and you can go to the LinkedIn group to stay informed about recent updates which should be coming over the next few days and weeks leading up to OAUG's COLLABORATE conference!