ORA-01503 ORA-17503 When Creating a Controlfile

Problem:

Control file creation fail when checking REDOLOG files:

CREATE CONTROLFILE REUSE DATABASE "RDQ" NORESETLOGS NOARCHIVELOG
*
ERROR at line 1:
ORA-01503: CREATE CONTROLFILE failed
ORA-01565: error in identifying file '+REDO1/RDQ/ONLINELOG/group_1.1'
ORA-17503: ksfdopn:2 Failed to open file +REDO1/RDQ/ONLINELOG/group_1.1
ORA-15173: entry 'ONLINELOG' does not exist in directory 'RDQ'

Analysis:

When creating a control file with " NORESETLOGS" option the database will expect that the REDOLOG files are already exist in the specified location, so it will use them to completely recover the database when coming up from mount to open mode, otherwise it will fail.

Solution:

1- If you really intended to create the control file with "NORESETLOGS" option, make sure you pass the right REDOLOG files path to the CREATE CONTROLFILE command.

2- If you are re-creating the control file after restoring the database and doing "in-complete" point in time recovery, then the database have to create a fresh REDOLOG files, and thus, you have to replace the "NORESETLOGS" parameter with "RESETLOGS" so the database will create the REDOLOG files in the specified location even if they are not already exist there.