We here at Seilerwerks Industries (not really) have been using snapshot standby databases to refresh an array of unit test databases from a common primary. During the business day, these would be converted to snapshot standby databases for testing, then overnight they are converted back to physical standby and recovered up to the master again.

However we ran into one problem the other week. I noticed that the test3 database was still in physical standby mode well into the business day. Trying to manually convert returned this error:

DGMGRL> convert database test3 to snapshot standby
Converting database "test3" to a Snapshot Standby database, please wait...
Error:
ORA-16534: switchover, failover or convert operation in progress
ORA-06512: at "SYS.DBMS_DRS", line 157
ORA-06512: at line 1

A quick search of MOS yielded bug 13716797 (ORA-16534 from the broker when setting apply-off), which simply suggested restarting the problem database when encountering that error. However doing so did not get me any further. That's when the I checked the Data Guard Broker configuration:

DGMGRL> show configuration;

Configuration - testdb

  Protection Mode: MaxPerformance
  Databases:
    test1 - Primary database
    test5 - Physical standby database
    test6 - Snapshot standby database
    test3 - Physical standby database
    test4 - Snapshot standby database

Fast-Start Failover: DISABLED

Configuration Status:
ORA-16610: command "CONVERT DATABASE test6" in progress
DGM-17017: unable to determine configuration status

Looks like I have two databases stuck in physical standby mode, test3 and also test6. And the configuration is specifically complaining about test6. So I restarted that database and, sure enough, I was then able to convert both back to snapshots:

DGMGRL> show configuration;

Configuration - testdb

  Protection Mode: MaxPerformance
  Databases:
    test1 - Primary database
    test5 - Snapshot standby database
    test6 - Snapshot standby database
    test3 - Snapshot standby database
    test4 - Snapshot standby database

Fast-Start Failover: DISABLED

Configuration Status:
SUCCESS

It was very interesting to me to see one member of the Data Guard configuration prevent me from performing an operation on a different member. Hopefully this helps one of you in the future.