Retail Pro 9 MP with Oracle Patch fails to install Successfully

RetailPro9 Maintenance Pack with Oracle Patch fails to install successfully.

When updating your RetailPro9 installation with a Maintenance Pack that includes an Oracle Patch, you may run into a situation where the Oracle Patch fails to install.

After the MP has run for a few minutes, you will get a screenshot like the one below:

Running the MP again may tell you that the MP was not installed successfully and stop.

If you try to start Retail Pro or Techtoolkit, you may get an error message stating it could not start because of a ?Missing OCI.DLL? file

You may have to perform certain steps before you can start Retail Pro 9 again successfully.

NOTE: Do NOT reboot the machine unless you are instructed to do so.

Step A.

• Run MP
• Pay attention to the Oracle Patch install console window. This window will come up as soon as the Oracle Patch starts its installation.
• If you get an Oracle Patch install error, you should see the following warning: Oracle Patch failed with error = 74? (use the screenshot at the bottom of this article as an example of where to look; the error message is at the bottom of the window)
• At that moment, expand the window to maximum size and take a screenshot so you have the complete text. Be quick, as the screen will disappear shortly afterwards. What you?re looking for, is to capture at least the section in the Oracle Console window that lists ?The following files are active?. (See the Note at the bottom of this article if were not able to take a screenshot of the Oracle console window)
• Exit the MP installation completely.
• Check whether the file oci.dll is in the \oracle\ods11gr1\bin directory. If it is not, rename oci.dll.old to oci.dll
• Reboot the machine.
• After the Reboot DO NOT START/LAUNCH ANY application that you know will access Oracle, like e.g. SQLPLUS, Retail Pro, TOAD, Oracle developer, etc.
• In the Services panel, check that the Retail Pro License Server Service is still present. If not, reinstall it using the \RetailPro9\ServiceManager.
• If the error you received in the Oracle Install Console Window does not match the specific error above,
• Start the following services in the given order:
  • Oracle ServiceRproODS
  • OracleODS11GRTNSlistener
  • Retail Pro License server

Retail Pro and Techtoolkit should now be useable again, although neither Retail Pro nor Oracle were updated.

NOTE: The procedure below in step B should ONLY be used if the oracle patch installation failed with the following error message (in the Oracle Install console window): ?Oracle Patch failed with error = 74?. If the reported error is different, DO not proceed beyond Step A.

If you have gone through Step A and decide NOT to proceed, log a Webtac issue and attach the screenshot of the Oracle install console window.

FIRST:

- I you did not create a Techtoolkit backup of the database prior to running the MP, please create a Complete Backup now.

- Additionally, you can create a backup of the \Oracle\ODS11gr1 directory after stopping the Retail Pro ?License server? service, the OracleODS11GRTNSlistener and the Oracle ServiceRproODS service, in that order. This is NOT absolutely necessary, although you would have to Reinstall completely and restore the DB backup if you were to encounter a catastrophic failure.

To troubleshoot the actual inability to apply the Oracle Patch, proceed as follows:

• In the services panel, check any of the services listed below and stop any that may be running:
  • Retail Pro License server (may have to be ?killed? in Task Manager)
  • ODS Rproods VSS write service
  • Oracle Jobschedule RproOds
  • OracleODS11GRTNSlistener
  • Oracle ServiceRproODS
  • Any Retail Pro related service, e.g. Centrals service, EFT Service, Retail Pro Business Intelligence, ECM.exe etc.

 

• Look at the screenshot that you made of the Oracle Install window and find the line : ?The following files are active? (use the screenshot below as an example of where to look) (this means that, at the time of the attempted Oracle Patch update, the following files were in use)
• Find the files listed. A good starting point is the \oracle\ods11gr1\bin directory, although depending on your setup, some files may be located elsewhere.
• For each file, copy the file to a different backup location, e.g. a directory somewhere else.
• For each file, rename the original file (don?t use the .old extension, as that might be used by Retail Pro), then copy the backed up file back from the backup location.
• Start the following services in the given order:
  • Oracle ServiceRproODS
  • OracleODS11GRTNSlistener
  • Retail Pro License server
• Wait for 60 seconds
• Try applying the MP again.
• If it finished successfully, clean up by deleting all renamed and backed up files.
• If it did not succeed, AND you are still getting an Oracle Error 74, Follow Step A again, to get Retail Pro back up and running in the original State, and delete all the renamed and backed up files. If it failed once after you followed the complete instructions in this document, please try Step B one more time. Should that still fail with any errors from the oracle Patch, please take a screenshot of the COMPLETE Oracle patch window and attached that to your Webtac case.

NOTE: Below is an example Oracle patch update console window. This is only for informational purpose. Use your own specific screenshot to identify any 'Active' files as instructed above.

 

NOTE:

If you were not able to make a screenshot of the Oracle console window (to collect a list of all the locked files), you can get the list of locked files from Oracle patch temporary logs.

1) Let the Oracle patch fail and wait for our MP to fail, close all of its windows and exit.

2) Navigate to \Oracle\ODS11gr1\cfgtoollogs\opatch folder (the path is the same for all versions of Oracle - 32/64-bit, standard/enterprise).

3) Locate a most recent log file (note that the file name structure is "opatchYYYY-MM-DD_...log" - you need the LOG file named like this, not the "opatch_history.txt").

4) Open that file - it will contain the same lines Oracle patch was displaying in the console window. I'd recommend to open it with WordPad instead of Notepad - notepad might not handle line separators properly.