First patch on Oracle E-Business Suite R12

This morning I downloaded my first patch for the new Oracle EBS R12. Already there are 2 high priority patches for the new EBS, and I downloaded one of them (patch p5856453_R12[1].AD.A_R12_LINUX.zip).
I could not help feeling a little bit excited, because patching is changed in EBS R12.
The manual steps to be taken before patching are removed from the readme and placed into an xml file. Before patching you are supposed to run a new perl script called $AD_TOP/bin/admsi.pl

This script creates an install_{patch_number}.html.
After performing the steps in the html file, you have to run $AD_TOP/bin/admsi.pl –done (to let the system know you have performed the manual steps….).
The admsi.pl also creates a custom readme which you have to read before patching.

I was a little bit disappointed, because the patch I downloaded is maybe to small. Nothing about admsi.pl in the readme…Tried to run admsi.pl anyway

cd /ebs/patches/5856453/ad/patch/115/manualsteps
[oracle@vamisux34 manualsteps]$ $AD_TOP/bin/admsi.pl
Invoking Oracle Patch Application Assistant….
Exception in thread "main" java.lang.ExceptionInInitializerError
at com.jgoodies.looks.plastic.PlasticLookAndFeel.(PlasticLookAndFeel.java:122)
at oracle.apps.ad.msi.LaunchUI._useOracleLookAndFeel(LaunchUI.java:69)
at oracle.apps.ad.msi.LaunchUI.(LaunchUI.java:29)
Caused by: java.awt.HeadlessException:
No X11 DISPLAY variable was set, but this program performed an operation which requires it.
at sun.awt.HeadlessToolkit.getScreenResolution(HeadlessToolkit.java:189)
at com.jgoodies.looks.LookUtils.isLowResolution(LookUtils.java:436)
at com.jgoodies.looks.LookUtils.(LookUtils.java:180)
… 3 more

Maybe with X-manager and $DISPLAY set ? No, admsi.pl returns a java exception…

Invoking Oracle Patch Application Assistant….
Exception in thread "main" java.lang.StringIndexOutOfBoundsException: String index out of range: -1
at java.lang.String.substring(String.java:1762)
at oracle.apps.ad.msi.LaunchUI.main(LaunchUI.java:107)

Running admsi.pl like this.....

[oracle@vamisux34 manualsteps]$ perl $AD_TOP/bin/admsi.pl -cli

Gathering Information..
Enter the patch_top : /ebs/patches/5856453
Enter the APPS user password:
Logfile for this session is located at admsi.log
Generating installation instructions for patch 5856453..
Updating database....
install_5856453.html generated successfully
install_5856453.txt generated successfully
[oracle@vamisux34 manualsteps]$

The install_5856443.html is the new readme. Because there are no manual actions to perform, the new generated readme is the same as the old one and I can apply the patch using adpatch..

oracle@vamisux34 appl]$ cd /ebs/patches
[oracle@vamisux34 patches]$ ls
5856453 p5856453_R12[1].AD.A_R12_LINUX.zip
[oracle@vamisux34 patches]$ cd 5856453/
[oracle@vamisux34 5856453]$ adpatch options=hotpatch
************* Start of AutoPatch session *************
AutoPatch version: 12.0.0
AutoPatch started at: Tue Feb 27 2007 11:05:47

…..

AutoPatch is complete.
AutoPatch may have written informational messages to the file/appl/apps/apps_st/appl/admin/PROD/log/u5856453.lgi
Errors and warnings are listed in the log file/appl/apps/apps_st/appl/admin/PROD/log/u5856453.log
and in other log files in the same directory.

The patch finished without problems….