4 Ways To Fix ORA-01578: Oracle Data Block Corruption

4 Ways To Fix ORA-01578: Oracle Data Block Corruption

Frequently getting Oracle Data Block Corruption error ORA-01578 meanwhile working with your database?

Don’t have any idea on how to fix ORA-01578: Oracle Data Block Corruption?

Not to worry..! As our today’s post is mainly about this specific Oracle error ORA-01578 and its fixes.

What’s This ORA-01578 Error?

ORA-01578 runtime error” is an Oracle database table error, which occurs when there are many blocks of a corrupted table. In such a situation, the database table becomes inaccessible due to the un-readability of Oracle to the existing table.

This situation might lead to a serious data loss issue, but you can come out from this data loss issue if you got the previous or the updated backup file. The backup file is the prime and vital thing in our life. It not only saves your data but even lets you come out from the dreaded data loss situation. In case you lost your data then you can easily have them from the backup file. But what if you don’t have the current backup file. No need to worry still there are chances to recover them.

What Are The Reasons Behind Oracle Data Block Corruption?

Before moving into the recovery process, it important to know what is the possible reason behind Oracle Data Block Corruption:

  • Bad permissions of BDUMP, CDUMP or UDUMP directories
  • Running Oracle on Windows
  • Data corruption
  • Renaming files when Oracle is down
  • Inappropriate closing or abortion from Oracle application
  • Missing data files
  • Many other OS-related causes

Other Types of Oracle Database corruption

Mainly there are 2 types of corruption found in the Oracle database table: Logical & Physical. There are various Logical & Physical corruptions behind the inaccessibility of Oracle database table few are: virus infection, crashed hard drive, improper attempts of NOLOGGING, and many more.

  • Physical Corruption (Media Corruption)
  • Logical Corruption (Soft Corruption)

Physical Corruption:

This type of corruption occurs due to the  I/O Problems, Memory Failure, Server Controller. Concerning to Oracle documentation, the damaging could be occurred by:

  • Bad header: The start of the block i.e. cache header is crooked with invalid values.
  • Block is broken/Incomplete: Information of Block header get mismatched with the block tail
  • Block is misplaced
  • Block checksum is invalid

Logical Corruption:

This type of corruption is not available in alert log only by the DBVerify tool, also be renowned if db_block_checking Parameter is permitted, it can create the internal error ORA-600 [kddummy_blkchk]

How To Diagnose ORA-01578 Error?

If you are getting this ORA-01578 error while running Oracle on the personal Windows PC then chances are high that your disk has been crashed. This happens because the Oracle database won’t run on the lower configuration PC, it is designed for industrial-strength servers.

Corruption of the Oracle database is very rare. But when it occurs it’s mainly due to bad hardware (disks).

On the other hand, Oracle offers its user with several tools to identify Oracle corruption. By using the below-given method you can know that the oracle database is damaged or not.

1-RMAN
2-DBVerify

1. DBVerify :

It is an external command-line tool that executes a physical data structure integrity to verify on an offline database. This can be used against backup files and online files. DBVERIFY mainly used to verify that a backup database is valid or not (before it is restored). It is also used as an analytical aid when you have encountered data corruption scenario.

2. RMAN

RMAN is able to detect both logical/physical corruption, verify the below-given script that could check if the database is corrupted without still take backup:

RMAN> configure device type disk parallelism 4;
RMAN> backup validate check logical database;
OR
RMAN> run {
allocate channel diskl1 type disk;
allocate channel disk2 type disk;
allocate channel disk3 type disk;
allocate channel disk4 type disk;
backup validate check logical database;
}

Through the above-given steps, you can verify the database validation.

How To Fix ORA-01578: Oracle Data Block Corruption Error?

Method 1#  Use The BBED Utility

Once you identify the oracle corruption; you can easily use the Block Browser and Edit Tool(BBED) utility for editing up the corrupt data block.

BBED is an oracle utility mainly used to check the internal Oracle blocks structure. Be careful while using this tool as it can damage Oracle blocks and Oracle databases.

This tool helps you to edit the data files block and also overrides the Oracle database access.

Method 2# Restoring The Block Segment

The second method that you can try to fix ORA-01578 error is by restoring the segment having the block indicated.

In this method, you have to drop the segment and then re-create it again. If the trace file is present there then discuss all the error coming in it with your ORACLE representative.

Generally, oracle block corruption happens due to hardware error. Chances are high that when such things happen there is trace file or log entry was made.

By analyzing the trace file you can easily identify the root causes of oracle data block corruption.

If this method won’t work then move to the next solution i.e using the Oracle inbuilt recovery tool RMAN (Recovery Manager).

Method 3# Oracle Inbuilt Recovery Tool RMAN (Recovery Manager)

Even the Oracle developers have provided an inbuilt utility – RMAN (Oracle Recovery Manager). It is capable of detecting block corruption no matter it came due to physical & logical reasons. RMAN inbuilt utility is designed to work with servers & to take a backup of the Oracle database as well as to restore it when the Oracle database is corrupted due to any reasons.

Its main role is to detect the physically corrupt data block when you back up the database or restoring it. It cannot automatically check the logical corruption of blocks you have to specify the ‘CHECK LOGICAL’ choice for differentiating logical corruption.

Method 4# Oracle Database Repair Tool

In some cases, RMAN fails to fix the block corruption thus the Oracle database remains inaccessible. This situation can even push you into the data loss issue at such situation the last option left with you is to use professional third-party software. Oracle Database Repair Tool will help you in recovering data from the unusable or inaccessible state.


It is the complete solution for recovering the Oracle database data. This tool successfully repairs the Oracle database of Oracle 9i, 10g & 11g. It can easily restore all objects like Tables, Index, Views, Triggers, Constraints & more.

Steps To Repair ORA-01578: Oracle Data Block Corruption

Step 1: Search the initial screen of Stellar Phoenix Oracle Recovery with a pop-up window showing options to select or search corrupt Oracle databases on your computer.1

Step 2: Click Scan File to initiate the scan process after selecting the oracle database. The recoverable database objects get listed in left-side pane.

2

Step 3: Click an object to see its preview.

3

Step 4: : Click Start Repair in the icon bar to start the repair process. A pop-up window is displayed which show the steps needed to perform further. Click next and continue.

4

Step 5: Give the user name, password and path of the blank database where you want to save the repaired database objects.
5
Step 6: Repairing and restoring various database objects after establishing a connection with blank oracle database.
6

Conclusion:

In this blog, I have outlined all the possible ways to fix ORA-01578: Oracle Data Block Corruption.

I have also mentioned some easy ways to detect oracle database corruption.  Besides that now you have the option to deal with Oracle database corruption easily with the Oracle file repair tool. This tool comes with a user-friendly interface and a trial version.

Let us know whether this blog seems helpful to you or not by commenting on this post.