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Above steps consolidated from Oracle8 Server Migration Guide, Copyright© 1997, Oracle Corporation. All rights reserved.

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Note:  
This will leave the data dictionary compatible to Oracle 7.3. You will have to follow the regular downgrade procedure to go to any other 7.x version.

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Common Problems and Troubleshooting

1.  Alter database open resetlogs will ensure only that all the rollbacks are converted to Oracle8 and online redologs are created as per Oracle8 format.

2.  If you have pending or in-doubt transactions, look at the following tables:

pending_trans$

pending_session$

pending_sub_session$

and do the usual manual rollback or commit the pending transaction. In some cases, you might have to manually remove these transactions from the tables listed previously. When the pending transactions are taken care of, it paves the way for the successful migration. Some scenarios might warrant a call to Oracle Support.

3.  To verify the space availability in the system tablespace, make sure that your iniSID.ora is in the default $ORACLE_HOME/dbs directory; execute the following command:

$ mig SPOOL= ‘“filename”’ CHECK_ONLY=TRUE

Otherwise, you can specify the pfile option in the command line:

$  mig PFILE=’”initSID.ora”’ SPOOL= ‘“filename”’ CHECK_ONLY=TRUE

4.  The sys.dual table gets accidentally dropped during migration. You need to re- create it.
You need to get connected as user SYS in order to re-create the dual table;

/* Creating the sys.dual table */

drop public synonym dual;

create table dual

(dummy varchar2(1)) storage ( initial 1);

insert into dual values(‘X’);

commit;

create public synonym dual for dual;

When it is created, grant the select on the dual table to public:

Grant Select on dual to public with grant option;

5.  It is always a good idea to spool an outfile when you run any scripts. You can debug it very easily going through the spool file.

6.  After completing the process, try to do a shutdown immediate or normal only. This will accomplish the required flushing of buffers, caches, and so forth.

7.  If you have rowids stored, execute the dbms_rowid package to convert it into Oracle8 format. The file header will be converted when the datafiles are altered online.
You can refer to the Server Administrator Guide for the details on the dbms_rowid package.

8.  You may call Oracle Support for some postmigration patches you might need to install.

Summary

The key to successful Oracle8 installation and upgrade lies in adequately preparing the system to fulfill hardware and software requirements. As a DBA, you must make sure that the system satisfies the memory and disk requirements for the products you want to install.

Upgrade needs careful planning, testing the developed plan, and preserving the source database after you have chosen a particular method for moving from an existing server release to a newer release.

There is no facility for migrating directly from version 6 to version 8. You must first migrate from Oracle6 to Oracle7 before moving to Oracle8.

If you migrate between operating systems, the export/import method is the only supported method. The migration utility does not support different operating systems in the source and destination environments.