How do I fix "ORA-01033: ORACLE initialization or shutdown in progress" error?

Question

I have an Oracle 9.2 database. The server has crashed. After rebooting any attempt to connect to the Oracle server returns error ORA-01033 (as in title).

I've tried stopping and starting the Oracle services (from Control Panel -> Administrative Tools -> Services).

Also, I have waited half an hour, so I don't think the Oracle server is legitimately still starting up. My feeling is that more likely something is corrupted.

Solution 1

Not necessarily corrupted (that's actually pretty hard to do). Try these steps:

1. Log onto the database server
2. Set ORACLE_SID=yourSID
3. at a command prompt, type sqlplus /nolog
4. in sql*plus, enter: SHUTDOWN ABORT, then STARTUP
5. If the database starts up normally, issue a SHUTDOWN IMMEDIATE and another STARTUP.

If that starts the database, you're good to go. If not, you should then get some sort of error message that will get you started down the path of getting a solution. Check the alert log for your instance for additional information. Update this question if you still need help.

Assuming the manual startup fixes the issue, then to make your database startup automatically when the service starts, edit the registry. Look for the key HKLM\Software\Oracle\HOMEx\ORA_sid_AUTOSTART. You want the value of this key to be TRUE. Note: HOMEx will be of the form HOME0, HOME1, etc.

Solution 2

Try This

sqlplus /nolog
SQL> connect / as sysdba
SQL> shutdown abort
SQL> startup nomount
SQL> alter database mount;
SQL> alter database open;

Comments

[Rick]

Thanks for the reply, unfortunately have uninstalled Oracle 9.2 and installed Oracle 10 in an attempt to work around the problem. I'll mark your answer as accepted since it was the only answer.

[DCookie]

The steps 1-4 are pretty generic across Oracle versions. The registry key is slightly different in 10g, but concept applies. Finally, become familiar with the alert log - it can often solve issues like this one. If there's something seriously wrong with the database, it will likely be reported there. Typically it's named ORACLE_HOME/admin/bdump/alertSID.log

[Stop Slandering Monica Cellio]

This did not work for me but a very similar set of instructions did: ora00600.com/wordpress/scripts/ora600/…

[squillman]

Welcome to Server Fault! It would be helpful to others if you could add some explanation of what this does to solve the problem.