HotSpot Virtual Machine Error : 11

I've been working with Oracle for quite a while now and have more than my share of installs under my belt. Today a co-worker emailed me with the following error produced by the 10.2.0.1 runInstaller.

All installer requirements met.

Preparing to launch Oracle Universal Installer from /tmp/OraInstall2007-10-23_11-51-47AM. Please wait ...$ Starting Installer in advanced mode ...
Oracle Universal Installer, Version 10.2.0.1.0 Production
Copyright (C) 1999, 2005, Oracle. All rights reserved.


Unexpected Signal : 11 occurred at PC=0xFECD9110
Function=[Unknown. Nearest: JVM_MonitorWait+0x1F24]
Library=/tmp/OraInstall2007-10-23_11-51-47AM/jre/1.4.2/lib/sparc/client/libjvm.so

Current Java thread:
at oracle.sysman.oii.oiip.osd.unix.OiipuUnixOps.chgrp(Native Method)

.
.
.

#
# HotSpot Virtual Machine Error : 11
# Error ID : 4F530E43505002EF 01
# Please report this error at
# http://java.sun.com/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi
#
# Java VM: Java HotSpot(TM) Client VM (1.4.2_08-b03 mixed mode)
#
# An error report file has been saved as hs_err_pid27925.log.
# Please refer to the file for further information.

I'm still amazed that after hundreds of installs you can still hit a new error. In this case the oraInst.loc file, which points to the central inventory location, was not setup correctly. There was an old location which they commented out, but they forgot to specify a new one.

Ex. Sample oraInst.loc (On unix servers this file is normally stored in /var/opt/oracle or /etc)

#Oracle Installer Location File Location
#Wed Apr 30 14:51:42 EDT 2007
inventory_loc=/home/oracle/oraInventory
inst_group=dba


What is the Central Inventory? The Central Inventory stores information for all Oracle products installed on the server. Inside the inventory location there is an xml file (inventory.xml) which lists all of the ORACLE_HOMEs.

Ex. <Central Inventory Path>/ContentsXML/inventory.xml (In this example, using the path from the oraInst.loc file above you would look in /home/oracle/oraInventory/ContentsXML/inventory.xml)

<?xml version="1.0" standalone="yes" ?>
<!-- Copyright (c) 2001 Oracle Corporation. All rights Reserved -->
<!-- Do not modify the contents of this file by hand. -->
<INVENTORY>
<VERSION_INFO>
<SAVED_WITH>2.2.0.19.0</SAVED_WITH>
<MINIMUM_VER>2.1.0.6.0</MINIMUM_VER>
</VERSION_INFO>
<HOME_LIST>
<HOME NAME="APPSDB_ORA" LOC="/app/oradb/920_64bit" TYPE="O" IDX="1"/>
<HOME NAME="APPSDB_ORA1" LOC="/app/oradb/1020_64bit" TYPE="O" IDX="2"/>
<HOME NAME="APPSIAS_ORA" LOC="/apps/appsora/oraora/iAS" TYPE="O" IDX="3"/>
</HOME_LIST>

As you can see, this server has both 9i and 10g database software and an application server. Inside each of these ORACLE_HOMEs there is a Local Inventory. The local inventory stores the list of components, patchsets and interim patches installed in that particular ORACLE_HOME. The file in this case is named comps.xml

ex. <Local Inventory Location>/ContentsXML/comps.xml (This file is rather large so just a small clip. This is from the 920_64bit ORACLE_HOME.)

<?xml version="1.0" standalone="yes" ?>
<!-- Copyright (c) 2001 Oracle Corporation. All rights Reserved -->
<!-- Do not modify the contents of this file by hand. -->
<PRD_LIST>
<TL_LIST>
<COMP NAME="oracle.server" VER="9.2.0.1.0" BUILD_NUMBER="0" REP_VER="0.0.0.0.0" RELEASE="Production" INV_LOC="Components/oracle.serv
er/9.2.0.1.0/1/" LANGS="en" XML_INV_LOC="Components21/oracle.server/9.2.0.1.0/" ACT_INST_VER="2.2.0.12.0" DEINST_VER="2.2.0.4.0" INS
TALL_TIME="2004.Dec.16 14:43:30 EST" INST_LOC="/mnt/app/visdb/920_64bit/oracle.server">
<EXT_NAME>Oracle9i Database</EXT_NAME>
<DESC></DESC>
<DESCID>COMPONENT_DESC</DESCID>
<DEP_GRP_LIST>
<DEP_GRP NAME="Optional" TYPE="O"/>
<DEP_GRP NAME="Required" TYPE="R"/>
</DEP_GRP_LIST>
<DEP_LIST>
<DEP NAME="oracle.rdbms" VER="9.2.0.1.0" DEP_GRP_NAME="Optional" HOME_IDX="1"/>

By default Oracle looks for the oraInst.loc file in /var/opt/oracle or /etc depending on your platform. But you can change the location if you wish, you'll just need to remember to specify the -invPtrLoc parameter with opatch and the runInstaller.

ex. opatch lsinventory -invPtrLoc <path to your>/oraInst.loc
runInstaller -invPtrLoc <path to your>/oraInst.loc

This relates back to an earlier post I made which shows you how to recreate your central inventory in an EBS environment.