What should I do if I get a message that an attempt by Backup Exec to change the state of the Oracle database timed out?

For media server operations, the Oracle database may take some time to change states, such as from open to shut down, from shut down to mount, and so on. A SQLplus script in Backup Exec allows a default time-out of 10 minutes to handle the changing database state. For Oracle Real Application Cluster (RAC), a srvctl script is used.

The time-out for database state change is named SqlplusTimeout.

You may need to change the length of the default time-out if the following error message appears:

An attempt by Backup Exec to change the state of the database timed 
out.  For details, refer to the Database Script output section in 
the job log. Contact your database administrator to change the 
state of the database.

Try shutting down the database. If you succeed, then the SQLplus time-out is too short. Change the default time-out appropriately, based on how long it took to shut down the database. If you cannot shut down the database, contact your DBA to troubleshoot the database.

If the time-out is too short, then restore jobs and offline backups may fail with a time-out error. If the time-out is too long, and the database does not respond to the state change request, the job takes longer to fail.

The following table describes how to change the SQLplus time-out.

Table: Changing the SqlplusTimeout

On this platform

Do the following

For Oracle instances on Windows computers

  • Create a registry entry of the type DWORD in:

    Software\Symantec\Backup Exec\Engine\Agents\XBSA\Oracle RMAN Agent

  • Name the entry SqlplusTimeout.

  • Set the time-out value in seconds. For example, a time-out of 5 minutes is set as 300 seconds.

For Oracle instances on Linux computers

  • In a command prompt, type the following:

    vi etc/VRTSralus/ralus.cfg

  • Create the following entry:

    Software\Symantec\Backup Exec\Engine\Agents\XBSA\Oracle RMAN Agent\SqlplusTimeout

  • Set the time-out value in seconds. For example, a time-out of 5 minutes is set as 300 seconds.