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How to Resolve ORA-01123: cannot start online backup; media recovery not enabled

ORA-01123

Tried to make the whole database enter backup mode, but it failed with ORA-01123.

SQL> alter database begin backup;
alter database begin backup
*
ERROR at line 1:
ORA-01123: cannot start online backup; media recovery not enabled

ORA-01123 means that the archivelog mode is disabled, there's no media recovery to support online backup mode of the database.

Let's check the current archivelog mode of the database.

SQL> select log_mode from v$database;

LOG_MODE
------------
NOARCHIVELOG

As we can see, the archivelog mode is not enabled.

Solution

The solution is simple, you have to enable archivelog before entering backup mode.

Restart DB to Mount

SQL> shutdown immediate; SQL> startup mount;

Enable Media Recovery

Which means to enable archivelog mode.

SQL> alter database archivelog;

Database altered.

Check Log Mode

SQL> select log_mode from v$database;

LOG_MODE
------------
ARCHIVELOG

Open DB

SQL> alter database open;

Database altered.

Begin Backup

SQL> alter database begin backup;

Database altered.

We're done.

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