Bug ORA-38881 during “drop tablespace” even though there is NO Guaranteed Restore Point (GRP) – Fixed in version 19.17

I just upgraded one Oracle Database system from 12.2 to 19.10. I was happy with the result until one database procedure started to fail with the message “ORA-38881: Kan inte radera tabellutrymmet TECH_29102_9292 i den primära databasen pga. garanterade återställningspunkter.” . For those unfamiliar with the Swedish language, this is the same error message as “Oracle Error ORA-38881: Cannot drop tablespace string on primary database due to guaranteed restore points.”. I started doing some investigation until I found that there is a BUG:14163359 fixed on version 19.17 of the Oracle databases. And the solution to it would be, of course, upgrading the database to version 19.17 but also using the hidden parameter “_allow_drop_ts_with_grp” or dropping all the existing guarantee restore points. I opted to drop all the restore guarantee points that I found that I created before the upgrade. Therefore, follow below the error message, as well as the deletion of the restore point:

— Error message:

ORA-38881: Kan inte radera tabellutrymmet TECH_2827374_29822 i den primära databasen pga. garanterade återställningspunkter.
2022-10-20 02:33:45  CRITICAL_ERROR

— Checking the existence of a created guarantee restore point via v$restore_point followed by the deletion:

SQL> set pages 2000
SQL> set lines 2000
SQL> select * from v$restore_point;

       SCN DATABASE_INCARNATION# GUA STORAGE_SIZE TIME                                                                        RESTORE_POINT_TIME                                                          PRE NAME                                 PDB CLE PDB_INCARNATION# REP      CON_ID
---------- --------------------- --- ------------ --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- --- ---------------- --- ----------
9,0120E+10                     2 YES   1,7784E+10 2022-10-19 06:53:50,000000000                                                                                                                           YES GRP_1666155230080                    NO  NO                  0 NO           0

SQL> drop restore point GRP_1666155230080;

Restore point dropped.

SQL>  select * from v$restore_point;


no rows selected

brunors

Hi! I am Bruno, a Brazilian born and bred, and I am also a naturalized Swedish citizen. I am a former Oracle ACE and, to keep up with academic research, I am a Computer Scientist with an MSc in Data Science and another MSc in Software Engineering. I have over ten years of experience working with companies such as IBM, Epico Tech, and Playtech across three different countries (Brazil, Hungary, and Sweden), and I have joined projects remotely in many others. I am super excited to share my interests in Databases, Cybersecurity, Cloud, Data Science, Data Engineering, Big Data, AI, Programming, Software Engineering, and data in general.
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