Oracle Database Discussions

Hello,

I have had an Oracle 9i-R2 database daily RMAN backup job on AIX 5.3 working fine for more than a year. Recently, a few weeks back it started dumping cccccccc_1_1 files (cc...c are lowercase letters or digits) in $OH/dbs with no apparent reason. The file size varies from a few MB to more than 100MB.
Since RMAN task finishes with no error (exit status = 0), I only spotted the issue when the file system where $OH resides neared to be full.

I have tried searching for similar problems and nothing came up so far.
I am tackling it by purging older than 3 days files for now, which is kind of a surrogate solution. Instead of patching the symptom I would rather prefer addressing the root cause, if that's possible.
Has anybody encountered a similar issue?

Any kind of useful feedback would be highly appreciated.

Regards,
Dan

Hello everyone,

I have reviewed all responses so far. Thank you very much.
I have manually run a test backup also, by adding FORMAT after 'archivelog', which does seem to work ok - i.e. no backup files in $OH/dbs.
Now I'll leave the adjusted job to run tonight and see what comes up tomorrow in the log.

Regards,
Dan

Edited by: Parnassus on Jul 20, 2011 11:11 AM

PROBLEM SOLVED!
Thank you all!

Edited by: Parnassus on Jul 21, 2011 8:51 AM