ORA-01078: failure in processing system parameters

I got ” ORA-01078: failure in processing system parameters ” error in Oracle database.

ORA-01078: failure in processing system parameters

Details of error are as follows.

oracle:deveci01:/home/oracle:>sqlplus / as sysdba

SQL*Plus: Release 18.3.0.0.0 Production on Mon Sep 8 14:18:54 2018

Copyright (c) 1982, 2011, Oracle. All rights reserved.

Connected to an idle instance.

SQL> startup mount;
ORA-01078: failure in processing system parameters
LRM-00109: could not open parameter file '/oracle/product/18.3.0.0/db/dbs/initCLONE.ora'
SQL>

Cause: Failure during processing of INIT.ORA parameters during system
 startup.

Action: Further diagnostic information should be in the error stack.

failure in processing system parameters

This ORA-01078 errors are related with the missing of parameter file (pfile or spfile)

To solve this error, you can check and fix the PFILE or SPFILE NAME. 

I have changed pfile name with initCLONE.ora and it is started as follows.

SQL> 
SQL> startup mount;
ORACLE instance started.

Total System Global Area 2.1379E+10 bytes
Fixed Size 2230912 bytes
Variable Size 1.0469E+10 bytes
Database Buffers 1.0872E+10 bytes
Redo Buffers 36106240 bytes
Database mounted.

Sometimes If you set wrong ORACLE_SID, you may get this error. So check your ORACLE_SID with the following command.

echo $ORACLE_SID

Or IF Pfile or spfile don’t exist, then you can create it manually or you can restore spfile from backup.

You can read the following post to learn more details about Oracle parameter files ( SPFILE, PFILE )

Oracle Database 12c Parameter Files ( Spfile & Pfile )

Do you want to learn Oracle Database for Beginners, then read the following articles.

Oracle Tutorial | Oracle Database Tutorials for Beginners ( Junior Oracle DBA )