RMAN-06820 ORA-17629 During Backup at Standby Site

APPLIES TO:

Oracle Database - Enterprise Edition - Version 11.2.0.4 and later
Information in this document applies to any platform.

SYMPTOMS

RMAN archivelog backup at the standby site is throws the following errors at the start of the job:

Starting backup at 15-JAN-2014 13:44:46
RMAN-06820: WARNING: failed to archive current log at primary database
ORACLE error from target database:
ORA-17629: Cannot connect to the remote database server
ORA-17627: ORA-01017: invalid username/password; logon denied 
ORA-17629: Cannot connect to the remote database server

But the rest of the backup actually complete successfully:

skipping archived log of thread 1 with sequence 607; already backed up
skipping archived log of thread 1 with sequence 614; already backed up
channel t1: starting archived log backup set
channel t1: specifying archived log(s) in backup set
input archived log thread=1 sequence=678 RECID=290 STAMP=836919086
input archived log thread=1 sequence=679 RECID=291 STAMP=836919369
input archived log thread=1 sequence=680 RECID=292 STAMP=836919706
input archived log thread=1 sequence=681 RECID=293 STAMP=836919873
channel t1: starting piece 1 at 15-JAN-2014 13:44:52
channel t1: finished piece 1 at 15-JAN-2014 13:46:17
piece handle=LOG_THMDB_20140115_171228_1_1 tag=LOG_TWMDB comment=API Version 2.0,MMS Version 5.4.1.0
channel t1: backup set complete, elapsed time: 00:01:25
Finished backup at 15-JAN-2014 13:46:17

CHANGES

Database was upgraded to 11.2.0.4

CAUSE

Per ‘unpublished‘ Bug 8740124, as of 11.2.0.4, we now include the current standby redo log as part of an RMAN archivelog backup at the standby site. This is achieved by forcing a log switch at the primary site.

However, the connection to the primary failed when attempting to do so.

This is due to this bug:
      Bug 17580082 - ACTIVE STANDBY - RMAN-06820: WARNING: FAILED TO ARCHIVE CURRENT LOG AT PRIMARY

SOLUTION

Workaround

Do not use operating system authentication to login with RMAN. Use a username and password.

That is, do not use just the "/" (operating system authentication) connect to the standby database:

$ rman target /

Instead put in the username and password for the SYSDBA user:

$ rman sys/password

REFERENCES

BUG:17580082 - ACTIVE STANDBY - RMAN-06820: WARNING: FAILED TO ARCHIVE CURRENT LOG AT PRIMARY

NOTE:8740124.8 - Bug 8740124 - Current standby redo log group should be included in the database backup by RMAN
NOTE:1301769.1 - ORA-17629 : RMAN Resync Catalog from db_unique_name all fails