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How to Resolve ORA-00054: resource busy and acquire with NOWAIT specified or timeout expired

ORA-00054

There're several cases that throw ORA-00054.

Alter Table Move Tablespace

We tried to move table to another tablespace.

SQL> show user
USER is "HR"
SQL> alter table employees move tablespace users;
alter table employees move tablespace users
            *
ERROR at line 1:
ORA-00054: resource busy and acquire with NOWAIT specified or timeout expired

Alter Table Read Only

Or tried to make the table read only.

SQL> alter table employees read only;
alter table employees read only
*
ERROR at line 1:
ORA-00054: resource busy and acquire with NOWAIT specified or timeout expired

Drop Table

Even dropping the table is impossible.

SQL> drop table employees;
drop table employees
           *
ERROR at line 1:
ORA-00054: resource busy and acquire with NOWAIT specified or timeout expired

Create Index

We can't create index at this moment.

SQL> create index emp_mgr_idx on employees (manager_id);
create index emp_mgr_idx on employees (manager_id)
                            *
ERROR at line 1:
ORA-00054: resource busy and acquire with NOWAIT specified or timeout expired

Alter Index

Next, we tried to rebuild index to another tablespace.

SQL> alter index emp_email_uk rebuild tablespace example;
alter index emp_email_uk rebuild tablespace example
            *
ERROR at line 1:
ORA-00054: resource busy and acquire with NOWAIT specified or timeout expired

ORA-00054 means that the table you want to operate with has a lock on it by someone else and it cannot release the lock at this moment. You need to wait for the lock released.

Rebuilding the index online is not a cure, either. It also requires the lock to be released. Otherwise, you'll see no return, no error and the indefinite waiting.

Solution

You need to told the owner to release the lock, a COMMIT or ROLLBACK is necessary to explicitly release the lock, or you can kill sessions of the lock owner.

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