How I Clean Up Old (Inactive) Patches in Oracle Using
OPatch
If you have been consistently installing RUs on your Oracle
Database, one of the things that will occur to you after some time is your
Oracle Home being crammed with outdated patches.
They're not active anymore, but they're still lingering.
I ran into the same situation recently while checking one of
our 19c environments. There were multiple old RUs lying around, and I thought
it’s a good time to clean things up a bit.
Here’s how I usually handle deleting inactive patches using
OPatch.
First, Check Your OPatch Version
Before doing anything, I always make sure OPatch is up to
date. Some of these utilities won’t even work properly on older versions.
|
cd
D:\oracle\product\19.3.0\dbhome_1\OPatch Make sure
it’s 12.2.0.1.37 or higher. |
Check What’s Actually Inactive
Next step is to see what patches are inactive. This command
is quite handy:
|
D:\oracle\product\19.3.0\dbhome_1\OPatch>opatch
util listorderedinactivepatches Oracle
Interim Patch Installer version 12.2.0.1.45 Copyright (c)
2025, Oracle Corporation. All rights
reserved. Oracle
Home :
D:\oracle\product\19.3.0\dbhome_1 Central
Inventory : C:\Program Files\Oracle\Inventory from : OPatch
version : 12.2.0.1.45 OUI
version : 12.2.0.7.0 Log file
location :
D:\oracle\product\19.3.0\dbhome_1\cfgtoollogs\opatch\opatch2025-09-05_09-50-10AM_1.log Invoking
utility "listorderedinactivepatches" List Inactive
patches option provided The oracle
home has the following inactive patch(es) and their respective overlay
patches: The number of
RU chains is 1 ***** There
are 2 inactive RU patches in chain 1 -Inactive
RU/BP 35046439:Windows Database Bundle Patch : 19.19.0.0.230418 (35046439),
installed on: Fri Jul 28 10:22:30 GST 2023, with no overlays -Inactive
RU/BP 36521936:Windows Database Bundle Patch : 19.24.0.0.240716 (36521936),
installed on: Thu Oct 24 11:31:40 GST 2024, with no overlays -Active RU/BP
37486199:Windows Database Bundle Patch : 19.26.0.0.250121 (37486199),
installed on: Sat May 17 10:22:50 GST 2025, with no overlays OPatch
succeeded. |
There are 2 inactive RU patches in chain 1
-Inactive RU/BP 35046439: 19.19.0.0.230418
-Inactive RU/BP 36521936: 19.24.0.0.240716
-Active RU/BP 37486199:
19.26.0.0.250121
So clearly:
- 2
old patches are inactive
- 1 is
the current active RU
Pretty typical scenario after a couple of patch cycles.
Important Thing I Almost Missed Once
Now here’s something you should not ignore.
Oracle recommends keeping at least 2 inactive patches in the
Oracle Home.
Why?
Because if something goes wrong and you need to rollback or investigate, having
older patches helps.
So don’t just go and delete everything blindly.
Cleaning Up the Old Ones
To remove inactive patches, I use:
|
D:\oracle\product\19.3.0\dbhome_1\OPatch>opatch
util deleteinactivepatches Oracle
Interim Patch Installer version 12.2.0.1.45 Copyright (c)
2025, Oracle Corporation. All rights
reserved. Oracle
Home :
D:\oracle\product\19.3.0\dbhome_1 Central
Inventory : C:\Program Files\Oracle\Inventory from : OPatch
version : 12.2.0.1.45 OUI
version : 12.2.0.7.0 Log file
location :
D:\oracle\product\19.3.0\dbhome_1\cfgtoollogs\opatch\opatch2025-09-05_09-50-50AM_1.log Invoking
utility "deleteinactivepatches" Inactive
Patches Cleanup option provided Delete
Inactive Patches ....... ***** There
are 2 inactive RU patches in chain 1 ***** 1
inactive patches will be deleted -To be
deleted inactive RU/BP 35046439:Windows Database Bundle Patch :
19.19.0.0.230418 (35046439), installed on: Fri Jul 28 10:22:30 GST 2023, with
no overlays -To be
retained inactive RU/BP 36521936:Windows Database Bundle Patch :
19.24.0.0.240716 (36521936), installed on: Thu Oct 24 11:31:40 GST 2024, with
no overlays -Active RU/BP
37486199:Windows Database Bundle Patch : 19.26.0.0.250121 (37486199),
installed on: Sat May 17 10:22:50 GST 2025, with no overlays Do you want
to proceed? [y|n] y User
Responded with: Y Deleted RU/BP
patch: 35046439 OPatch
succeeded. |
Notice something interesting here — even though there were 2
inactive patches, OPatch decided to delete only 1.
That’s because it automatically ensures the minimum required
patches are retained.
I just confirmed with:
y
And that’s it:
Deleted RU/BP patch: 35046439
OPatch succeeded.
A Couple of Things I Always Keep in Mind
From experience, a few small precautions go a long way:
- I
prefer doing this during a maintenance window (just to be safe)
- If
it’s a critical system, I take a quick backup of Oracle Home
- Always
check logs if something looks off:
%ORACLE_HOME%\cfgtoollogs\opatch
Final Thoughts
This is one of those small maintenance activities that’s
easy to ignore, but it helps keep your environment clean.
Inactive patches don’t harm directly, but over time they
just add clutter and confusion especially when you’re troubleshooting or
auditing patch levels.
No comments:
Post a Comment