Applying patches to OBIEE : 11.1.1.6.2 BP1

The recent release of OBIEE 11.1.1.6.2 BP1 weighs in with a hefty eight individual patches to apply. They use the standard Oracle opatch mechanism. Here we see how to apply the patches, and note any "gotchas".

Starting point

To install 11.1.1.6.2 BP1, you must be on 11.1.1.6.0 first.

This article is based on an installation on Linux (OL6), but the process should be the same across OSs. It is also based on a single-node OBIEE install. For clustered deployments, you will need to do this on each node - see the patch README for more information.

Obtain the patches

The first step is to download the patches from Oracle Support. See my previous post on how to locate them and optionally download them from the command-line using wget. Don't forget the JDeveloper patch, 13952743, which doesn't show up in the standard search for 11.1.1.6.2 BP1.

Unzip the patches

You can unzip them using the commandline statement


unzip \*.zip

This will give you a list of folders, each containing a set of patch files. You should have the following:


drwxrwxr-x  4 oracle oinstall 4096 Jul 10 17:10 13867143
drwxr-xr-x  4 oracle oinstall 4096 Apr 12 07:10 13952743
drwxrwxr-x  4 oracle oinstall 4096 Jun  2 03:25 13960955
drwxr-xr-x  4 oracle oinstall 4096 Jun 14 00:53 14142868
drwxr-xr-x  4 oracle oinstall 4096 Jul 10 17:20 14223977
drwxrwxr-x  4 oracle oinstall 4096 Jun 22 11:06 14226980
drwxrwxr-x  4 oracle oinstall 4096 Mar 29 03:09 14226993
drwxrwxr-x  4 oracle oinstall 4096 Apr 19 07:22 14228505

Read the README

The patches come with a master README file, in 14223977/README.txt. Make sure you read through this and understand it. What I detail below are my notes based on it, but always check the README.

Determine FMW_HOME

All OBI 11g installations follow the same directory structure, but the root of this structure varies depending on where it was installed. The root is known as FMW_HOME (Fusion MiddleWare Home), and is commonly found in locations such as

/u01/app/oracle/product/fmw
/home/oracle/obiee
c:\oracle\middleware

Before continuing, make sure you know where your FMW_HOME is. When you've found it, you should see the following structure within it:


-rw-rw----  1 oracle oinstall   225 Jul  6 13:49 domain-registry.xml
drwxr-x---  3 oracle oinstall  4096 Jul  6 13:44 instances
drwxr-x---  2 oracle oinstall  4096 Jul  6 16:41 logs
drwxr-x---  7 oracle oinstall 36864 Jul  6 13:26 modules
-rw-r-----  1 oracle oinstall   623 Jul  6 13:26 ocm.rsp
drwxr-x--- 65 oracle oinstall  4096 Jul 10 20:25 Oracle_BI1
drwxr-x--- 33 oracle oinstall  4096 Jul 10 21:38 oracle_common
-rw-r-----  1 oracle oinstall 86921 Jul  6 13:26 registry.dat
-rw-r-----  1 oracle oinstall  1750 Jul  6 13:26 registry.xml
drwxr-x---  4 oracle oinstall  4096 Jul  6 13:37 user_projects
drwxr-x---  8 oracle oinstall  4096 Jul  6 13:26 utils
drwxr-x---  9 oracle oinstall  4096 Jul  6 13:26 wlserver_10.3

For the rest of this article, I'm assuming you've set the environment variable FMW_HOME, for example using export FMW_HOME=/u01/app/oracle/product/fmw (on a bash shell - other shells & OSs will differ)

Put patch files in place

Move your unzipped patch files into the $FMW_HOME/Oracle_BI1 folder. It should look like this:


oracle@rnm-ol6 fmw]$ ls -l /u01/app/oracle/product/fmw/Oracle_BI1/
total 272
drwxrwxr-x  4 oracle oinstall 4096 Jul 10 17:10 13867143
drwxr-xr-x  4 oracle oinstall 4096 Apr 12 07:10 13952743
drwxrwxr-x  4 oracle oinstall 4096 Jun  2 03:25 13960955
drwxr-xr-x  4 oracle oinstall 4096 Jun 14 00:53 14142868
drwxr-xr-x  4 oracle oinstall 4096 Jul 10 17:20 14223977
drwxrwxr-x  4 oracle oinstall 4096 Jun 22 11:06 14226980
drwxrwxr-x  4 oracle oinstall 4096 Mar 29 03:09 14226993
drwxrwxr-x  4 oracle oinstall 4096 Apr 19 07:22 14228505
drwxr-x---  3 oracle oinstall 4096 Jul  6 12:53 admin
drwxr-x---  3 oracle oinstall 4096 Jul  6 12:53 asoneofftool
drwxr-x---  3 oracle oinstall 4096 Jul  6 13:08 assistants
drwxr-x---  3 oracle oinstall 4096 Jul  6 12:53 atgpf
drwxr-xr-x  3 oracle oinstall 4096 Jul 10 20:25 bicomposer
drwxr-x--- 16 oracle oinstall 4096 Jul  6 13:15 bifoundation
[…]

Check disk space

The patches copy files and take copies of files they are replacing, so you will need free disk space - from experience, around 10GB can be necessary

Backup, backup, backup

You already take backups of your OBIEE installation, right? Well, now is definitely the time to start if you don't. Patching is a complex process, and if something goes wrong then you are at the mercy of oPatch and oraInventory.

And don't forget, untested backups are as good as no backups.

See the Oracle® Fusion Middleware Administrator's Guide - Introducing Backup and Recovery for more information, and specifically Backup and Recovery Recommendations for Oracle Business Intelligence

Shutdown the OBIEE processes, including WebLogic

Shutdown OPMN, the Weblogic managed server (bi_server1), and the Weblogic Admin Server.

Delete catalog manager cache directories

These may or may not exist - if they do, delete them


rm -rv $FMW_HOME/Oracle_BI1/bifoundation/web/catalogmanager/configuration/org.eclipse.osgi
rm -rv $FMW_HOME/Oracle_BI1/bifoundation/web/catalogmanager/configuration/org.eclipse.equinox.app

Set the environment variables

The patch README explains how to do this on Windows and a *nix C shell, here is how to do it on Bash shell:


cd $FMW_HOME/Oracle_BI1
export ORACLE_HOME=$PWD
export PATH=$ORACLE_HOME/bin:$PATH
export JAVA_HOME=$ORACLE_HOME/jdk
export PATH=$JAVA_HOME/bin:$PATH
export PATH=$ORACLE_HOME/OPatch:$PATH

Apply the OBI patches

Making sure that you've set the environment variables as shown above, apply the seven OBI patches as follows: 14223977 (1 of 7) Oracle Business Intelligence Installer


cd $FMW_HOME/Oracle_BI1/14223977
opatch apply

14226980 (2 of 7) Oracle Real Time Decisions


cd $FMW_HOME/Oracle_BI1/14226980
opatch apply

13960955 (3 of 7) Oracle Business Intelligence Publisher


cd $FMW_HOME/Oracle_BI1/13960955
opatch apply

14226993 (4 of 7) Oracle Business Intelligence ADF Components


cd $FMW_HOME/Oracle_BI1/14226993
opatch apply

14228505 (5 of 7) Enterprise Performance Management Components Installed from BI Installer 11.1.1.6.x


cd $FMW_HOME/Oracle_BI1/14228505
opatch apply

13867143 (6 of 7) Oracle Business Intelligence


cd $FMW_HOME/Oracle_BI1/13867143
opatch apply

14142868 (7 of 7) Oracle Business Intelligence Platform Client Installers and MapViewer


cd $FMW_HOME/Oracle_BI1/14142868
opatch apply

Check the OBI patches have been applied


cd $FMW_HOME/Oracle_BI1
opatch lsinventory|grep applied

You should see the seven patches just applied, plus a bunch of others from installing 11.1.1.6.0


Patch  14142868     : applied on Tue Jul 10 21:31:11 BST 2012
Patch  13867143     : applied on Tue Jul 10 20:58:29 BST 2012
Patch  14228505     : applied on Tue Jul 10 20:33:59 BST 2012
Patch  14226993     : applied on Tue Jul 10 20:25:58 BST 2012
Patch  13960955     : applied on Tue Jul 10 20:19:46 BST 2012
Patch  14226980     : applied on Tue Jul 10 20:02:40 BST 2012
Patch  14223977     : applied on Tue Jul 10 20:00:35 BST 2012
Patch  6845838      : applied on Fri Jul 06 13:33:14 BST 2012
Patch  7393921      : applied on Fri Jul 06 13:32:58 BST 2012
Patch  7707476      : applied on Fri Jul 06 13:32:46 BST 2012
Patch  7663342      : applied on Fri Jul 06 13:32:21 BST 2012
Patch  6599470      : applied on Fri Jul 06 13:32:10 BST 2012
Patch  6750400      : applied on Fri Jul 06 13:31:58 BST 2012
Patch  7427144      : applied on Fri Jul 06 13:31:23 BST 2012

Copy the client tool installers


cd $FMW_HOME/Oracle_BI1/clients/bipublisher/repository/Tools
cp BIPublisherDesktop*.exe $FMW_HOME/user_projects/domains/bifoundation_domain/config/bipublisher/repository/Tools/

Apply the JDeveloper patch

This requires a different ORACLE_HOME to be set, so make sure you don't skip setting the environment variables here:


cd $FMW_HOME/oracle_common
export ORACLE_HOME=$PWD
export PATH=$ORACLE_HOME/bin:$PATH
export JAVA_HOME=$ORACLE_HOME/jdk
export PATH=$JAVA_HOME/bin:$PATH
export PATH=$ORACLE_HOME/OPatch:$PATH
cd $FMW_HOME/Oracle_BI1/13952743
opatch apply

Check the JDeveloper patch has been applied


cd $FMW_HOME/Oracle_BI1
opatch lsinventory|grep applied

You should see the patch just applied listed:


Patch  13952743     : applied on Tue Jul 10 21:44:19 BST 2012

Startup the OBIEE processes, including WebLogic

Start up the Weblogic Admin Server, Managed Server (bi_server1), and then OPMN.

Validate the patching has been successful

If all has gone well, you should now be able to login to OBIEE and from the Administration link see the new version listed: 11.1.1.6.2 (Build 120605.2000 BP1 64-bit)

Client tools

Don't forget to update your Client Tools (Adminstration Tool, Catalog Manager, Job Manager). To do this, login to OBIEE and from the Home page go to Get Started… -> Download BI Desktop Tools -> Oracle BI Client Installer. This will download the client installer, which you should then run to install the tools.

The Admin Tool lists its version in C:\Program Files\Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition Plus Client\oraclebi\orahome\bifoundation\version.txt


Build: 11.1.1.6.0.BIFNDN_11.1.1.6.2BP1_NT_120604.0813
Release Version: Oracle Business Intelligence 11.1.1.6.0
Package: 120604.0136.000

Tidy up patch files

If you want to save disk space, you can delete the patch folders:


cd $FMW_HOME/Oracle_BI1/
rm -rf 13867143
rm -rf 13952743
rm -rf 13960955
rm -rf 14142868
rm -rf 14223977
rm -rf 14226980
rm -rf 14226993
rm -rf 14228505

Browser Cache

In the README for the patches, there is the following note that is worth being aware of:

NB: When the patchset installation is complete and the BI System is running again, end-users might experience unexpected behavior due to pre-existing browser sessions caching javascript from the earlier Oracle BI release. To avoid unnecessary support requests, ask all end-users to clear their browser cache.

This unexpected behaviour can include the display not rendering correctly - when creating a new Analysis, only the main toolbar is shown: The resolution is simple, just purge the browser cache and logout/login to OBIEE.

Another problem observed has been the dashboard tabs not displaying.

For an enterprise deployment, I would imagine this might cause a few problems as not all users will necessarily be familar with clearing browser caches, or pay attention to instructions telling them to do so.