Solving problem “The bootstrap execution failed because Cannot detect any valid Grid Infrastructure setup” during GI 19c patch installation

Scenario

I have a 2 nodes RAC 19c installation and I was applying patch p31305339_190000_Linux-x86-64.zip, the patch succeed on node1 but when I was patching the second node it failed misserably.

Symptoms

[root@node2 OPatch]# ./opatchauto apply /home/oracle/31305339 -analyze -oh /u01/app/grid

OPatchauto session is initiated at Fri Oct 16 10:23:44 2020
OPATCHAUTO-72083: Performing bootstrap operations failed.
OPATCHAUTO-72083: The bootstrap execution failed because Cannot detect any valid Grid Infrastructure setup..
OPATCHAUTO-72083: Fix the reported problem and re-run opatchauto.

OPatchauto session completed at Fri Oct 16 10:23:46 2020
Time taken to complete the session 0 minute, 3 seconds

opatchauto bootstrapping failed with error code 255.

Solution

The node is not “attached to the cluster” in irder words, GI_HOME missing from Inventory.xml, (which seems an installation bug to me), to fix it run.

<GI_HOME>/oui/bin/runInstaller -silent -ignoreSysPrereqs -attachHome ORACLE_HOME="<GI_HOME_LOCATION>" ORACLE_HOME_NAME="OraGI19Home1" CRS=true

if you don’t recall what the ORACLE_HOME_NAME is for this install you can see other nodes’ inventory

[root@node1 OPatch]# cat /oraInventory/ContentsXML/
comps.xml      inventory.xml  libs.xml       oui-patch.xml  
[root@node1 OPatch]# cat /oraInventory/ContentsXML/inventory.xml 
< ? xml version="1.0" standalone="yes" ?>
< !-- Copyright (c) 1999, 2020, Oracle and/or its affiliates.
All rights reserved. -->
< !-- Do not modify the contents of this file by hand. -->
<INVENTORY>
< VERSION_INFO>
   < SAVED_WITH>12.2.0.7.0</SAVED_WITH>
   < MINIMUM_VER>2.1.0.6.0</MINIMUM_VER>
</ VERSION_INFO>
< HOME_LIST>
< HOME NAME="OraDB12Home1" LOC="/databases/ee/product/12.2.0/dbhome_1" TYPE="O" IDX="1"/>
< HOME NAME="OraDB18Home1" LOC="/databases/ee/product/18x/dbhome_1" TYPE="O" IDX="2"/>
< HOME NAME="OraDB18Home2" LOC="/databases/se/product/18x/dbhome_1" TYPE="O" IDX="3"/>
< HOME NAME="OraDB12Home2" LOC="/databases/se/product/12.2.0/dbhome_1" TYPE="O" IDX="4"/>
< HOME NAME="OraDb11g_home1" LOC="/databases/ee/product/11.2.0/dbhome_1" TYPE="O" IDX="5"/>
< HOME NAME="OraDb11g_home2" LOC="/databases/se/product/11.2.0/dbhome_1" TYPE="O" IDX="6"/>
< HOME NAME="OraDB19Home1" LOC="/databases/ee/product/19x/dbhome_1" TYPE="O" IDX="7"/>
< HOME NAME="OraDB19Home2" LOC="/databases/rooh/19x/dbhome_1ee" TYPE="O" IDX="8"/>
< HOME NAME="OraDB18Home3" LOC="/databases/rooh/18x/dbhome_1ee" TYPE="O" IDX="9"/>
< HOME NAME="OraDB12Home3" LOC="/databases/ee/product/12.1.0/dbhome_2" TYPE="O" IDX="11"/>
< HOME NAME="OraDB12Home4" LOC="/databases/ee/product/12.1.0/dbhome_1" TYPE="O" IDX="12"/>
< HOME NAME="OraDB20Home1" LOC="/databases/rooh/20x/dbhome_1ee" TYPE="O" IDX="10"/>
< HOME NAME="OraDB21Home1" LOC="/databases/rooh/21x/dbhome_1" TYPE="O" IDX="13"/>
< HOME NAME="OraGI19Home1" LOC="/u01/app/grid" TYPE="O" IDX="14" CRS="true">
   < NODE_LIST>
      < NODE NAME="node1"/>
      < NODE NAME="node2"/>
   </ NODE_LIST>
</ HOME>
</ HOME_LIST>
< COMPOSITEHOME_LIST>
</ COMPOSITEHOME_LIST>
</ INVENTORY>

in my case the command was

[oracle@node2 OPatch]$ ../oui/bin/runInstaller -silent -ignoreSysPrereqs -attachHome  ORACLE_HOME="/u01/app/grid" ORACLE_HOME_NAME="OraGI19Home2" CRS=true
Starting Oracle Universal Installer...

Checking swap space: must be greater than 500 MB.   Actual 20479 MB    Passed
The inventory pointer is located at /etc/oraInst.loc
You can find the log of this install session at:
 /oraInventory/logs/AttachHome2020-10-16_10-55-50AM.log
'AttachHome' was successful.

and took less than a min, after that you can apply the patch

analyze

[oracle@node2 OPatch]$ sudo ./opatchauto apply /home/oracle/31305339 -analyze -oh /u01/app/grid

OPatchauto session is initiated at Fri Oct 16 10:56:01 2020

System initialization log file is /u01/app/grid/cfgtoollogs/opatchautodb/systemconfig2020-10-16_10-56-23AM.log.

Session log file is /u01/app/grid/cfgtoollogs/opatchauto/opatchauto2020-10-16_10-56-41AM.log
The id for this session is VDCE

Executing OPatch prereq operations to verify patch applicability on home /u01/app/grid
Patch applicability verified successfully on home /u01/app/grid

OPatchAuto successful.

--------------------------------Summary--------------------------------

Analysis for applying patches has completed successfully:

Host:node2
CRS Home:/u01/app/grid
Version:19.0.0.0.0


==Following patches were SUCCESSFULLY analyzed to be applied:

Patch: /home/oracle/31305339/31305087
Log: /u01/app/grid/cfgtoollogs/opatchauto/core/opatch/opatch2020-10-16_10-57-06AM_1.log

Patch: /home/oracle/31305339/31304218
Log: /u01/app/grid/cfgtoollogs/opatchauto/core/opatch/opatch2020-10-16_10-57-06AM_1.log

Patch: /home/oracle/31305339/31335188
Log: /u01/app/grid/cfgtoollogs/opatchauto/core/opatch/opatch2020-10-16_10-57-06AM_1.log

Patch: /home/oracle/31305339/31281355
Log: /u01/app/grid/cfgtoollogs/opatchauto/core/opatch/opatch2020-10-16_10-57-06AM_1.log



OPatchauto session completed at Fri Oct 16 10:57:29 2020
Time taken to complete the session 1 minute, 28 seconds
[oracle@node2 OPatch]$ 

apply

[oracle@node2 OPatch]$ sudo ./opatchauto apply /home/oracle/31305339  -oh /u01/app/grid

OPatchauto session is initiated at Fri Oct 16 11:05:10 2020

System initialization log file is /u01/app/grid/cfgtoollogs/opatchautodb/systemconfig2020-10-16_11-05-26AM.log.

Session log file is /u01/app/grid/cfgtoollogs/opatchauto/opatchauto2020-10-16_11-05-42AM.log
The id for this session is D7XZ

Executing OPatch prereq operations to verify patch applicability on home /u01/app/grid
Patch applicability verified successfully on home /u01/app/grid

Checking shared status of home.....

Bringing down CRS service on home /u01/app/grid
CRS service brought down successfully on home /u01/app/grid


Start applying binary patch on home /u01/app/grid
Binary patch applied successfully on home /u01/app/grid

Checking shared status of home.....

Starting CRS service on home /u01/app/grid

...