ORA-46952: standby database format mismatch for password file | Background Media Recovery process shutdown

Hi,

I got ” ORA-46952: standby database format mismatch for password file | Background Media Recovery process shutdown ” error in Oracle Dataguard.

Details of error are as follows in the Alertlog of Production database.

PR00 (PID:361583): MRP0: Background Media Recovery terminated with error 46952
2020-09-15T00:36:30.979434+03:00
Errors in file /u01/app/oracle/diag/rdbms/MSDBdg/MSDBDG1/trace/MSDBDG1_pr00_361583.trc:
ORA-46952: standby database format mismatch for password file '/u01/app/oracle/product/19.0.0/dbhome_1/dbs/orapwMSDBDG1'
Recovery interrupted!
2020-09-15T00:36:32.442626+03:00
Recovered data files to a consistent state at change 16782534409715
stopping change tracking
2020-09-15T00:36:32.719230+03:00
Errors in file /u01/app/oracle/diag/rdbms/MSDBdg/MSDBDG1/trace/MSDBDG1_pr00_361583.trc:
ORA-46952: standby database format mismatch for password file '/u01/app/oracle/product/19.0.0/dbhome_1/dbs/orapwMSDBDG1'
2020-09-15T00:36:32.740235+03:00
Background Media Recovery process shutdown (MSDBDG1)

This error is related with the password format after database has been upgrade to Oracle 19c.

Password format in Oracle 19c will be 12.2, instead of  format=12.

To solve this error, recreate the password file on primary and copy it to standby server.

Or Sometimes password files may be corrupted or removed accidentally.

If the password file is missing, then create it as follows.

orapwd file=orapwd$ORACLE_SID password=welcome1 entries=5 FORCE=Y

Then copy this password file to Standby. If your database is Oracle RAC, then copy this file to all node.

To solve this error, check your sys password and password file.

You can check and test the Production and Standby Side connections as follows.

Primary Side:

run sqlplus as follows.

sqlplus /nolog

Then run the following code, type your sys password and TNS Alias correctly.

connect sys/welcome@PROD_ALIAS as sysdba
Connected.
SQL> connect sys/welcome1@STANDBY_ALIAS as sysdba
Connected.

Standby Side:

run sqlplus as follows.

sqlplus /nolog

Then run the following code, type your sys password and TNS Alias correctly.

connect sys/welcome1@PROD_ALIAS as sysdba
Connected.
SQL> connect sys/welcome1@STANDBY_ALIAS as sysdba
Connected.

If the above connection test is not worked fine, then fix your password file or create it again.

Or you can copy it from the correct Primary Node to Other Primary nodes and Standby Side.

Do you want to learn Oracle dataguard, then read the following articles.

Oracle DataGuard Physical Standby Installation Step by Step Using RMAN -1