LsInventorySession failed: Oracle Home inventory cannot be loaded.

Error:-

LsInventorySession failed: Oracle Home inventory cannot be loaded.

 

Recently , while trying to get output from opatch lsinventory we faced following error.

[oratest@non-prod-db OPatch]$ ./opatch lsinventory Oracle Interim Patch Installer version 12.1.0.1.10 Copyright (c) 2025, Oracle Corporation.  All rights reserved.     Oracle Home       : /dbtest/dbdata/erp/12.1.0 Central Inventory : /dbtest/dbdata/oraInventory    from           : /dbtest/dbdata/erp/12.1.0/oraInst.loc OPatch version    : 12.1.0.1.10 OUI version       : 12.1.0.2.0 Log file location : /dbtest/dbdata/erp/12.1.0/cfgtoollogs/opatch/opatch2025-05-14_14-03-27PM_1.log   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 corrupted LsInventorySession failed: Oracle Home inventory cannot be loaded.   OPatch failed with error code 73

 

The Common Causes of above issues are

1. Oracle Home is not registered in the Central Inventory
2. Corrupt or missing inventory.xml
3. Oracle Home is a symbolic link
4. File permissions issues
5. Incorrect oraInst.loc path or content

 

 

 

 

Verify oraInst.loc

Check the content of the file:

[oratest@non-prod-db OPatch]$ cat /dbtest/dbdata/erp/12.1.0/oraInst.loc inventory_loc=/dbtest/dbdata/oraInventory inst_group=oinstall

 

So the content of oraInst.loc looks fine and pointing to correct Central Inventory directory which actually exists and accessible.

 

Check for the Inventory File

[oratest@non-prod-db OPatch]$ ls -l /dbtest/dbdata/oraInventory/ContentsXML/inventory.xml ls: cannot access /dbtest/dbdata/oraInventory/ContentsXML/inventory.xml: No such file or directory

 

So while checking the inventory.xml we found that the file is missing. which confirms the central inventory is broken or uninitialized, which is why opatch lsinventory is failing.

 

We will need to re-register Oracle Home with the central inventory using the runInstaller tool.

·         Backup Inventory Directory (Optional but Recommended)

$mv /dbtest/dbdata/oraInventory /dbtest/dbdata/oraInventory_backup_$(date +%Y%m%d)

 

·         Create a Fresh Inventory Directory:-

mkdir -p /dbtest/dbdata/oraInventory/ContentsXML chown -R oratest:oinstall /dbtest/dbdata/oraInventory chmod -R 775 /dbtest/dbdata/oraInventory

 

·         Re-register the Oracle Home

[oratest@non-prod-db OPatch]$ /dbtest/dbdata/erp/12.1.0/oui/bin/runInstaller -silent -attachHome ORACLE_HOME="/dbtest/dbdata/erp/12.1.0" ORACLE_HOME_NAME="OraHome1" Starting Oracle Universal Installer...   Checking swap space: must be greater than 500 MB.   Actual 32700 MB    Passed The inventory pointer is located at /etc/oraInst.loc 'AttachHome' was successful.

 

Now , lets try opatch lsinventory

[oratest@non-prod-db OPatch]$ ./opatch lsinventory Oracle Interim Patch Installer version 12.1.0.1.10 Copyright (c) 2025, Oracle Corporation.  All rights reserved.   Oracle Home       : /dbtest/dbdata/erp/12.1.0 Central Inventory : /dbtest/dbdata/oraInventory    from           : /dbtest/dbdata/erp/12.1.0/oraInst.loc OPatch version    : 12.1.0.1.10 OUI version       : 12.1.0.2.0 Log file location : /dbtest/dbdata/erp/12.1.0/cfgtoollogs/opatch/opatch2025-05-14_14-08-28PM_1.log   Lsinventory Output file location : /dbtest/dbdata/erp/12.1.0/cfgtoollogs/opatch/lsinv/lsinventory2025-05-14_14-08-28PM.txt   -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Local Machine Information:: Hostname: non-prod-db.com ARU platform id: 226 ARU platform description:: Linux x86-64  Installed Top-level Products (2):   Oracle Database 12c                                                  12.1.0.2.0 Oracle Database 12c Examples                                         12.1.0.2.0 There are 2 products installed in this Oracle Home.    Interim patches (35) :   Patch  25305405     : applied on Tue Feb 13 16:12:11 IST 2018 Unique Patch ID:  21701443    Created on 9 Nov 2017, 03:39:35 hrs PST8PDT    Bugs fixed:      25305405   Patch  25906117     : applied on Tue Feb 13 16:05:01 IST 2018 Unique Patch ID:  21296770    Created on 26 May 2017, 03:18:37 hrs PST8PDT    Bugs fixed:      25906117   --------------------------------------------------------------------------------   OPatch succeeded.

 

So, this is how issue was resolved.