ORA-39700: database must be opened with UPGRADE option

This message would appear if you have opened a database from a newer version ORACLE_HOME instead of the current version of the database. Alert logs shows messages similar to the following when you open your database with “startup open” command. Instance would immediately crash after logging these messages in the alert log file.

Completed: ALTER DATABASE MOUNT /* db agent *//* {0:0:210} */ ALTER DATABASE OPEN /* db agent *//* {0:0:210} */ SMON: enabling cache recovery Errors in file /u01/app/oracle/diag/rdbms/mydb/mydb/trace/mydb_ora_26170.trc: ORA-00704: bootstrap process failure ORA-39700: database must be opened with UPGRADE option Errors in file /u01/app/oracle/diag/rdbms/mydb/mydb/trace/mydb_ora_26170.trc: ORA-00704: bootstrap process failure ORA-39700: database must be opened with UPGRADE option Error 704 happened during db open, shutting down database USER (ospid: 26170): terminating the instance due to error 704 Instance terminated by USER, pid = 26170 ORA-1092 signalled during: ALTER DATABASE OPEN /* db agent *//* {0:0:210} */... opiodr aborting process unknown ospid (26170) as a result of ORA-1092 Fri Jun 30 16:11:53 2017 ORA-1092 : opitsk aborting process

It is recommended that you should use DBUA (database upgrade assistant) to upgrade your database. For manual upgrade, you would need to startup your database using “startup upgrade” option and then upgrade the database manually. Therefore, either open database form the current home to avoid any error, or start it using “startup upgrade” command from the new home, and upgrade the database

ORA-39700 on Physical Standby Database

If you are doing a rolling upgrade and primary database has already been upgraded, you might face ORA-39700 while opening your standby database. The reason of this error would be that you tried to STARTUP OPEN the standby database from the newer version RDBMS home. To avoid this error, DO NOT open the standby database until it is fully in sync with the primary database. To do this, first you would need to open the database in mount mode and then enable managed recovery. After enabling the managed recovery, archived logs should start applying on the database and eventually database should have the same version as primary. Once completely synchronized, now you can open your standby database and use it as active dataguard.