Conference eps::oracle

oracle@iliad.pa.dec.com>oerr ora 7209
07209, 00000, "sfofi: file size limit was exceeded."
// *Cause:  The size of the file to be opened exceeded the OS limit imposed
//          on this process.
// *Action: Run osh to increase the file size limit.


Use limit (csh)  or ulimit (ksh) to increase filesize limit.

/KK/

    
    
    Thanks for helping...  Just one question - qhen running ulimit -a, it 
    shows me that my file value is UNLIMITED (hard and soft).  If it is 
    unlimited, shouldn't it be working??
    
    			Thanks again
    
    				Claudia

    >Customer is getting the following Oracel error when trying to open a
    >database larger than 4GB:  ORA-07209: SFOFI file size limit was exceeded
    
    Hmmm, the ORA-07209 would indicate that you are trying to open a file
    larger than the filesize limit. What I was wondering about: what type
    of operation is the customer actually trying when she/he sees that
    error? And what makes the database larger than 4GB: 1 single datafile?
    The sum of all datafiles? The SGA?
    
    I'm not familiar with ORA-07209 but this may be a case of follow on
    error to some other problem. If this happens upon startup of the
    database what does the alert.log file have to say? If the database
    exceeds 4GB, how did it get created without an error? And the usual
    questions: D'Unix version, Oracle version, patches applied?
    
    Sorry for not being of much help so far
    
    	Martin
    

    
    
    	Martin,
    
    
    	This database was created some time ago, and that was not it's 
    	original size.  It grew and once it got to 4Gb, noone else were 
    	able to open it.
    
    	Oracle version is 7.2
    	DUnix 3.2C
    	And there are no patches
    
    
    	Ah, 4Gb byte is the size o the database file - 1 single datafile.
    
    
    
    				Any ideas??
    
    
    					Thanks in advance
    
    							Claudia
    
    	PS: I've asked for the alert.log....
    

It seems you have hit a bug there. We like to hear more...

You said, 
    
>    	This database was created some time ago, and that was not it's 
>    	original size.  It grew and once it got to 4Gb, noone else were 
>    	able to open it.

An Oracle datafile doesn't grow, it only allocates space from an existing file.

If it is a file system file, what size do you see from unix (ls -l)?

>    	Ah, 4Gb byte is the size o the database file - 1 single datafile.

Is that a System tablespace containing system, rollback, temp, user tables and
indexes? If not, you should be able to mount database (provided your system 
tablespace is small). Are you able to do so? If yes what do you see in
v$datafile?

Finally, is it the same Oracle release which is running now (Oracle 7.2.what?)
used when database was created ?

/KK/

    re .4
    >Oracle version is 7.2
    ...
    >Ah, 4Gb byte is the size o the database file - 1 single datafile.
    
    Hmmm, that's a pretty unusual Oracle setup, throw everything into the
    system tablespace comprising one single datafile. I can't remember the
    release but with older versions of Oracle there used to be a datafile
    size limit of 4GB.
    
    BUT as KK said in .5 datafiles don't dynamically grop over time. You
    create the datafile once and hand it to Oracle and from there on Oracle
    will take care of allocation space within that file. Now the question
    remains: how has the customer been able to allocate a datafile larger
    than 4GB? If they still run an Oracle version with that limitation they
    should have seen the error message upon creation of that datafile.
    
    	Martin
    

    
    
    	Hi everyone
    
    	Thanks for all teh help but we got to it...  It is a bug, but
    	is an Oracle bug.  Looks like you in version 7.2 you can not 
    	have one single datafile larger taht 4GB.  They split the datafile
    	and will do a patch, I think...
    
    
    				Thanks again
    
    					Claudia