ORA-29770 LMHB Terminates Instance as LMON Waited for Control File IO for too Long

Applies to: [ID 1197674.1]

Oracle Server - Enterprise Edition - Version: 11.1.0.6 to 11.2.0.1 - Release: 11.1 to 11.2
Information in this document applies to any platform.

Symptoms

Instance crashes with messages like the following:

Wed Sep 09 03:24:14 2009
LMON (ospid: 31216) waits for event 'control file sequential read' for 88 secs.
Wed Sep 09 03:24:29 2009
Errors in file /oracle/base/diag/rdbms/prod/prod3/trace/prod3_lmhb_31304.trc (incident=2329):
ORA-29770: global enqueue process LMON (OSID 31216) is hung for more than 70 seconds
Incident details in: /oracle/base/diag/rdbms/prod/prod3/incident/incdir_2329/prod3_lmhb_31304_i2329.trc
Wed Sep 09 03:24:39 2009
ERROR: Some process(s) is not making progress.
LMHB (ospid: 31304) is terminating the instance.

OR:

Mon Jan 10 14:23:00 2011
LMON (ospid: 8594) waits for event 'control file sequential read' for 87 secs.
Mon Jan 10 14:23:31 2011
LMON (ospid: 8594) waits for event 'control file sequential read' for 118 secs.
ERROR: LMON is not healthy and has no heartbeat.
ERROR: LM** (ospid: 8614) is terminating the instance.

Cause

RAC critical background process not participating heart beat for longer than default threshold of 70 seconds as it's waiting for control file IO

Solution

Control file IO could take longer than the default threshold under some circumstances, bug 8888434 which is affecting 11.1 and 11.2.0.1 but has been fixed in 11.2.0.2 will prevent instance from being terminated.

http://www.myoraclesupports.com/content/11202-patch-set-list-bug-fixes-problem-type