ORA-01008: not all variables bound while doing RMAN backup

Recovery Manager: Release 11.2.0.2.0 - Production on Tue Jan 17 15:00:22 2012

Copyright (c) 1982, 2009, Oracle and/or its affiliates.  All rights reserved.

RMAN>

connected to target database: MADM (DBID=xvxvxvxv)

RMAN>

connected to recovery catalog database

RMAN> 2> 3> 4> 5> 6> 7> 8> 9>

DBGSQL:     TARGET> select  nvl(max(al.recid), '0'),nvl(max(al.recid), 0)   into  :txtparmvalue, :parmvalue   from  v$archived_log al  where  al.status in ('X', 'A')    and  al.is_recovery_dest_file = 'YES'    and  al.creator = 'RMAN'

DBGSQL:        sqlcode = 1008

allocated channel: t1

channel t1: SID=1726 device type=SBT_TAPE

channel t1: Veritas NetBackup for Oracle - Release 6.5 (2009050106)

DBGSQL:     TARGET> select  nvl(max(al.recid), '0'),nvl(max(al.recid), 0)   into  :txtparmvalue, :parmvalue   from  v$archived_log al  where  al.status in ('X', 'A')    and  al.is_recovery_dest_file = 'YES'    and  al.creator = 'RMAN'

DBGSQL:        sqlcode = 1008

released channel: t1

RMAN-00571: ===========================================================

RMAN-00569: =============== ERROR MESSAGE STACK FOLLOWS ===============

RMAN-00571: ===========================================================

RMAN-03002: failure of backup command at 01/17/2012 15:00:36

RMAN-03014: implicit resync of recovery catalog failed

ORA-01008: not all variables bound

RMAN>

Recovery Manager complete.

I noticed that resync catalog or crosscheck archivelog all did not help in this case and this error appears due to a BUG in 11.2.0.2. You can read more about this issue at Oracle Metalink doc ID: 1280447.1

Current fix is to flush shared_pool and you will be able to start rman backup again.

SQL> alter system flush shared_pool;

ORA-29701: unable to connect to Cluster Manager while starting ASM

I prefer to install Oracle binaries using Silent Cloning method and manually create database instances using my custom scripts. 99% percent of the time I follow this method to build production databases at my work and use 1% only in case I evaluate a new version of Oracle. I need to admit that I never managed an ASM instance really and all our RAC installations are non ASM based with Veritas SFRAC as the shared disk sub system.  Since I don’t want to be left out of this ASM band wagon, last week I started building a new ASM instance from scratch without going through Oracle Installer GUI and DBCA. Everything went smooth till I mount the ASM instance. Then I came across ORA-29701. Please note that this is a non CRS server and I don't plan to run a RAC instance here.

echo $ORACLE_SID
+ASM
$ sqlplus '/ as sysdba'

SQL*Plus: Release 10.2.0.4.0 - Production on Fri Jan 6 15:42:21 2012

Copyright (c) 1982, 2007, Oracle.  All Rights Reserved.

Connected to an idle instance.

SQL> startup

ORA-29701: unable to connect to Cluster Manager

ORA-29701. Oracle uses cssd daemon for database instances which uses ASM to communicate with ASM instance. This is needed even if you don't plan to have a RAC instance or Oracle Clusterware installed on this node. Since I did not build ASM using Oracle GUI, Oracle did not add or configure cssd daemon to the OS stack. So  I need to login as root and configure it manually as follows

# cd $ORACLE_HOME/bin

# localconfig add

This step will does the task for you and you can start your ASM instance without any issues.