Skip to main content
ExLibris
  • Subscribe by RSS
  • Ex Libris Knowledge Center

    Oracle crash; "Instance terminated by PMON"

    • Article Type: General
    • Product: Aleph
    • Product Version: 20

    Problem Symptoms:
    Oracle crashes. The Oracle alert.log shows:

    1. "DBWR process terminated with error"
    2. "Instance terminated by PMON"

    Cause:
    1. swap does not address Oracle requirements - it should be equal to the size of the RAM (in case RAM is between 2 and 16 GB).
    2. kernel.shmmax is set to 2147483648 which is too small. Oracle requirements say:
    Minimum of the following values:
    -Half the size of the physical memory
    -4GB - 1 byte

    Resolution:
    Have Oracle DBA set kernel.shmmax to 4G

    Additional Information

    Excerpt from Oracle alert log showing specific instance of crash:

    Tue Jun 04 19:33:03 2013
    Errors in file /exlibris/app/oracle/diag/rdbms/aleph20/aleph20/trace/aleph20_pmon_8120.trc:
    ORA-00471: DBWR process terminated with error
    Tue Jun 04 19:33:04 2013
    Errors in file /exlibris/app/oracle/diag/rdbms/aleph20/aleph20/trace/aleph20_q001_20573.trc:
    ORA-00471: DBWR process terminated with error
    Tue Jun 04 19:33:06 2013
    Errors in file /exlibris/app/oracle/diag/rdbms/aleph20/aleph20/trace/aleph20_j001_655.trc:
    ORA-00471: DBWR process terminated with error
    PMON (ospid: 8120): terminating the instance due to error 471
    Instance terminated by PMON, pid = 8120 <------------
    Tue Jun 04 19:33:11 2013
    ORA-1092 : opitsk aborting process
    Tue Jun 04 19:41:56 2013
    Starting ORACLE instance (normal)

    Category: System Management (500)

    Subject: Oracle (500)


    • Article last edited: 10/8/2013
    • Was this article helpful?