ORA-16191: Primary Log Shipping Client Not Logged On Standby After SYS Password Change in Data Guard

When running a Data Guard environment, the following error appears in the alert log of the primary database:


ORA-16191: Primary log shipping client not logged on standby

This causes archived log shipping and redo apply on the standby database to fail.

🔄 Cause

  • The SYS password was changed on the primary database.
  • Starting from Oracle 11g, passwords are case-sensitive by default.
  • If the password file was created without ignorecase=Y, a password mismatch can occur between the primary and standby databases, leading to ORA-16191 errors.
  • The password file on the standby database was not recreated after the SYS password change on the primary.

✅ Solution

Follow these steps to resolve the issue:

Step 1: Stop Media Recovery on the Standby Database

Run the following command on the standby database:


ALTER DATABASE RECOVER MANAGED STANDBY DATABASE CANCEL;

Step 2: Recreate the Password File on Both Primary & Standby

On both the primary and standby servers, recreate the password file using the ignorecase=Y option:


orapwd file=orapwtestdb password=sys entries=100 ignorecase=Y

📌 Ensure that the same SYS password is used on both the primary and standby databases.

Step 3: Restart Media Recovery on the Standby Database

After recreating the password file, restart media recovery:


ALTER DATABASE RECOVER MANAGED STANDBY 
DATABASE DISCONNECT FROM SESSION;

Step 4: Monitor the Alert Log for Errors


Ensure that FAL requests are processed successfully and that there are no ORA-16191 errors.






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