Error:

When Starting a RAC DB instance I noticed the following error in the alertlog which was hampering the display of installed patches list:

QPI: opatch executable does not exist, opatch
QPI: OPATCH_INST_DIR not present:/u01/oracle/12.2.0.3/db/OPatch
Unable to obtain current patch information due to error: 20013, ORA-20013: DBMS_QOPATCH ran mostly in non install area
ORA-06512: at “SYS.DBMS_QOPATCH”, line 2327
ORA-06512: at “SYS.DBMS_QOPATCH”, line 854
ORA-06512: at “SYS.DBMS_QOPATCH”, line 634
ORA-06512: at “SYS.DBMS_QOPATCH”, line 2309

Analysis:

The top of the error message is clearly saying:

OPATCH_INST_DIR not present:/u01/oracle/12.2.0.3/db/OPatch

The right location of OPatch in my environment is /u01/oracle/12.2.0.3/OPatch, not as mentioned in the error message: /u01/oracle/12.2.0.3/db/OPatch

Checking the OPATCH directory location in DBA_DIRECTORIES:

SQL> set lines 170
col DIRECTORY_NAME for a30
           col DIRECTORY_PATH for a100
           select DIRECTORY_NAME,DIRECTORY_PATH from DBA_DIRECTORIES where DIRECTORY_NAME like ‘OPATCH%’;

It’s not only OPATCH_INST_DIR which pointing to the wrong directory, but the other OPATCH directories as well like; OPATCH_SCRIPT_DIR and OPATCH_LOG_DIR.

Solution:

As per note 2033620.1, the right OPATCH directories path should be as the following:

OPATCH_INST_DIR:       $ORACLE_HOME/OPatch     
OPATCH_SCRIPT_DIR:  $ORACLE_HOME/QOpatch
OPATCH_LOG_DIR:       $ORACLE_HOME/QOpatch

So let’s correct those paths using the following commands:

SQL> CREATE OR REPLACE DIRECTORY OPATCH_INST_DIR   AS ‘/u01/oracle/12.2.0.3/OPatch‘;
SQL> CREATE OR REPLACE DIRECTORY OPATCH_SCRIPT_DIR AS ‘/u01/oracle/12.2.0.3/QOpatch‘;
SQL> CREATE OR REPLACE DIRECTORY OPATCH_LOG_DIR    AS ‘/u01/oracle/12.2.0.3/QOpatch‘;

SQL> select DIRECTORY_NAME,DIRECTORY_PATH from DBA_DIRECTORIES where DIRECTORY_NAME like ‘OPATCH%’;

 

To verify that everything is OK after correcting the directory location:

Run the following command, where it should run successfully without returning any errors:

# $ORACLE_HOME/OPatch/datapatch  -prereq

 

 

 

 

References:
Datapatch fails with “ORA-20009:” “ORA-20013: DBMS_QOPATCH ran mostly in non install area” ORACLE_HOME is a SYMBOLIC LINK Doc ID 2033620.1