A Faulty Patchset
One of the members of the oracle-l email list just posted up that 10.2.0.3 is a non-functional patchset for Solaris SPARC 64-bit if you are using Veritas VxFS for datafiles. I just checked Metalink and found that this is Oracle Bug 5747918 covered in Metalink Note: 405825.1.
According to the email on oracle-l:
Applies to:
Oracle Server – Enterprise Edition – Version: 10.2.0.3 to 10.2.0.3
Oracle Server – Standard Edition – Version: 10.2.0.3 to 10.2.0.3
Solaris Operating System (SPARC 64-bit)
Oracle Database Server 10.2.0.3
Sun Solaris Operating System
Veritas FilesystemSolution
Until a patch for this bug is available, or 10.2.0.3 for Solaris is re-released, you should restore from backups made before the attempted upgrade. Do not attempt to upgrade again until a fix for this issue is available. Bug:5747918 is published on Metalink if you wish to follow the progress.
I’d stay with 10.2.0.2 I think.
Kevin Closson's Blog: Platforms, Databases and Storage 
This is disturbing and clearly indicates that Oracle did not test this patch on VxFS, which is the most widely used filesystem. Another thing that I find amazing that this patch is still available for download. It should be immediately taken off Metalink.
I wonder if that was intentional. 🙂
I generally don’t consider any new patchsets for a while unless strictly required but since you mentioned this issue, I took some time and discovered few more issues. One is related to CRS on RHEL AS U3 – just wouldn’t start. Another notable bug on x86 can cause shared pool memory issues and latches contention.
Thanks for bringing this up Kevin.
Holy cow!
Thanks for this warning, Kevin.
I missed that oracle-l post, too many of late and no time to read them all.
we had a plan to jack some clients to 10.2.0.3 very soon, that is now most definitely canned.
and Oracle marketing badmouths me when I shout out loud they just don’t have any QA left anywhere in their support…
We received “ORA-27037: unable to obtain file status ” error when we don’t have ODM link created in $ORACLE_HOME/lib directory. After that those errors disappeared. Do I still have concern about 10.2.0.3 Version on Veritas Filesystem.
After we created ODM Link all those errors disappeared. Sorry for the typo.
Having originally worked on ODM at Veritas the thought crossed my mind that it could be as simple as not having ODM in correctly. Do not misinterpret please–I’m not saying ODM is bad. If you found that setting up ODM correctly gets you past the issue, I should think you can proceed with testing. I’d also let Oracle know–I’m sure it would make them happy.