ORA-16020: fewer destinations available than specified by LOG_ARCHIVE_MIN_SUCCEED_DEST

[oracle@stageddb]$ sqlplus scott

SQL*Plus: Release 11.2.0.3.0 Production on Tue Jan 10 13:44:17 2017

Enter password:

ERROR:

ORA-00257: archiver error. Connect internal only, until freed.

You have got ORA-00257 because archive log destination was full. After clean up the archive logs you get ORA-16020 error.

SQL> alter system archive log all;

alter system archive log all

ERROR at line 1:

ORA-16020: fewer destinations available than specified by

LOG_ARCHIVE_MIN_SUCCEED_DEST

Cause:

Once the archive destination becomes full the location also becomes invalid. Normally Oracle does not do a recheck to see if space has been made available.

SQL> select dest_id, status from v$archive_dest;

DEST_ID STATUS

---------- ---------------------------

1 ERROR

2 VALID

3 INACTIVE

4 INACTIVE

5 INACTIVE

6 INACTIVE

7 INACTIVE

8 INACTIVE

9 INACTIVE

10 INACTIVE

11 INACTIVE

Solution

Option 1:

You can provide a valid location for the archive logs which will immediately start the archive log process.

Example:

SQL> alter system archive log all to '/opt/oracle/oradata/EMPDB/archive';

Option 2:

Change the REOPEN attribute of the LOG_ARCHIVE_DEST_n init<SID>.ora parameter. REOPEN=n sets the minimum number of seconds before ARCn try reopen a failed destination. The default value for n is 300 seconds, so if you have the default value for REOPEN you can wait 300 seconds to start it automatically.

SQL> alter system set LOG_ARCHIVE_DEST_n = '<path> REOPEN=30';

Option 3:

Start and stop archive log.

SQL> alter system archive log stop;

SQL> alter system archive log start;

Option 4:

Shutdown and restart the database which will reset the archive log destination parameter to be valid.