Saturday, June 11, 2016

Finding the bad blocks in Database



      At times it is necessary to know any bad blocks in the Production database. Using the RMAN method it is very easy to evaluate the physical or logical block corruptions and later the same can be repaired using the RMAN if they could be repairable. Execute the following RMAN command using with or without catalog. If the database is not in NOARCHIEVELOG mode then the database must be in MOUNT stage. 


RMAN> backup validate check logical database; 

If this command is ran on NOARCHIOVELOG database in OPEN mode it can be run into following error:

RMAN-03009: failure of backup command on x1 channel at xx/xx/xxxx xx:xx:xx
ORA-19602: cannot backup or copy active file in NOARCHIVELOG mode 




After successful completion of the command the following SQL can provide you the more information of the corrupted data blocks:



SELECT e.owner, e.segment_type, e.segment_name, e.partition_name, c.file#
, greatest(e.block_id, c.block#) corr_start_block#
, least(e.block_id+e.blocks-1, c.block#+c.blocks-1) corr_end_block#
, least(e.block_id+e.blocks-1, c.block#+c.blocks-1)
- greatest(e.block_id, c.block#) + 1 blocks_corrupted
, corruption_type description
FROM dba_extents e, v$database_block_corruption c
WHERE e.file_id = c.file#
AND e.block_id <= c.block# + c.blocks - 1
AND e.block_id + e.blocks - 1 >= c.block#
UNION
SELECT s.owner, s.segment_type, s.segment_name, s.partition_name, c.file#
, header_block corr_start_block#
, header_block corr_end_block#
, 1 blocks_corrupted
, corruption_type||' Segment Header' description
FROM dba_segments s, v$database_block_corruption c
WHERE s.header_file = c.file#
AND s.header_block between c.block# and c.block# + c.blocks - 1
UNION
SELECT null owner, null segment_type, null segment_name, null partition_name, c.file#
, greatest(f.block_id, c.block#) corr_start_block#
, least(f.block_id+f.blocks-1, c.block#+c.blocks-1) corr_end_block#
, least(f.block_id+f.blocks-1, c.block#+c.blocks-1)
- greatest(f.block_id, c.block#) + 1 blocks_corrupted
, 'Free Block' description
FROM dba_free_space f, v$database_block_corruption c
WHERE f.file_id = c.file#
AND f.block_id <= c.block# + c.blocks - 1
AND f.block_id + f.blocks - 1 >= c.block#
order by file#, corr_start_block#;