A Review of Multiple Problems During ODA Patching : Pre-Patch Health Check Can Save Days of Analysis. (Doc ID 2505346.1)

This note discusses several different issues in one configuration. It is very unlikely that this series of errors would occur again.
The intent of this note is to provide some tips when troubleshooting a complex issue.

Confirming that the ODA is healthy before patching is an essential best practice.

When diagnosing issues it is important to not overlook potential problems that may be unrelated to the expected problem source.
In this case the user stated that they could not create a database.
This led the investigation to search on common sources for create database problems and solutions.

Eventually several problems required identification and resolution before attempting to fix the database creation problem.
 Here is a partial list of the problems identified and resolved

1) SSH problems for users between nodes.
2) ASM had stopped working on one node months before patching was attempted.
3) Two Disks confirmed as offlined and dropped from ASM diskgroup for months
4) Once patching from 12.1. to 12.2. was started it was never completed on one of the two nodes
5) Compatible attribute for ADVM and ASM as disk incorrect for two diskgroups.
6) Clone file download and unpack problem.
7) Out of storage errors after unpacking.

8) Permissions problem for inventory directory.      <<< This was the final resolution for the create database problem.