Oracle ORA-03113: end-of-file on communication channel Oracle Tips by Burleson Consulting

Question:  I am running a distributed query using a db_link and I get this ORA-03113 error when I run the query:

 ORA-03113: end-of-file on communication channel

 How do I fix this ORA-03113 error?

Answer:  Use the oerr utility to get the details for the ORA-03113 error:

ORA-03113: end-of-file on communication channel

Cause: The connection between Client and Server process was broken.

Action: There was a communication error that requires further investigation.  

• First, check for network problems and review the SQL*Net setup.

• Also, look in the alert.log file for any errors.

• Finally, test to see whether the server process is dead and whether a trace file was generated at failure time.

The ORA-03113: end-of-file on communication channel error is a generic error.  The ORA-03113 error when connecting suggests that the connection was established, but lost later, like a timeout. 

Note: Windows users report ORA-03113 errors from non-Oracle issues like Windows logs becoming full.

There are many possible causes for the ORA-03113 error.  It is a "catch-all" type error which means "I cannot communication with the Oracle shadow process."  This usually happens when the Oracle server process has died for some reason. 

See MOSC Note:17613.1 "ORA-03113":

For example, ORA-03113 could be signaled for any of these scenarios:

• Server machine crashed

• Your server process was killed at O/S level

• Network problems

• Oracle internal errors / aborts on the server

• Client incorrectly handling multiple connections

• etc.. etc.. etc.. - a lot of possible causes !!

It goes on to note that the ORA-03113 End-Of-File error often has additional messages:

It is common for this error to be accompanied by other errors such as:

• ORA-01041 internal error. hostdef extension doesn't exist

• ORA-03114 not connected to ORACLE

• ORA-01012 not logged on  

Oracle support will likely need more information to determine what caused the error.

 The most useful items are:

1.  Does this occur when trying to (a) make a connection to the database or
   (b) on an established connection ?
   
2.  Check for a trace file from the failed session in USER_DUMP_DEST and BACKGROUND_DUMP_DEST directories.
   
3.  Does a particular statement reproduce this problem or is it random ? Use SQL_TRACE on the session to find the problem statement.

Oracle MOSC documents also reveal that, "ORA-03113 is received when running catpatch after applying the 9.2.0.5 or 9.2.0.6 patchset".