OPatch failed to locate Central Inventory

While verifying installed patches using OPatch, an error may occur indicating that the Central Inventory cannot be located. This prevents the opatch lsinventory command from retrieving the list of installed patches.

This article explains the cause of OPatch error code 73 and the steps required to resolve the issue in Oracle Database 19c.

Problem

While executing the following command to verify installed patches:

cd $ORACLE_HOME/OPatch
opatch lsinventory

The following error may appear:

Oracle Interim Patch Installer version 12.2.0.1.49
Copyright (c) 2026, Oracle Corporation.  All rights reserved.

Oracle Home       : /u01/app/oracle/product/19_3/db_home
Central Inventory : /oradata/app/oraInventory
from              : /u01/app/oracle/product/19_3/db_home/oraInst.loc

OPatch version    : 12.2.0.1.49
OUI version       : 12.2.0.7.0
Log file location : /u01/app/oracle/product/19_3/db_home/cfgtoollogs/opatch/opatch2026-03-04_20-35-17PM_1.log

OPatch failed to locate Central Inventory.

Possible causes are:
    The Central Inventory is corrupted
    The oraInst.loc file specified is not valid.

LsInventorySession failed: OPatch failed to locate Central Inventory.

OPatch failed with error code 73

Cause

This issue typically occurs due to one of the following conditions:

• The Central Inventory (oraInventory) directory is missing or corrupted.
• The oraInst.loc file contains an incorrect inventory path.
• The Oracle Home is not registered in the Central Inventory.

The Central Inventory maintains information about Oracle installations, Oracle Homes, and applied patches. When the Oracle Home is not properly attached to the inventory, OPatch cannot read the patch information.

Solution – Attach Oracle Home to Central Inventory

The issue can be resolved by attaching the Oracle Home to the Central Inventory using the Oracle Universal Installer (OUI).

Step 1: Navigate to Oracle Universal Installer Directory

cd $ORACLE_HOME/oui/bin

Step 2: Attach Oracle Home to the Central Inventory

Execute the following command:

./runInstaller -silent -attachHome -invPtrLoc /etc/oraInst.loc oracle_home="/u01/app/oracle/product/19_3/db_home" ORACLE_HOME_NAME="OraDB19Home1"

Step 3: Successful Output

If the operation completes successfully, the output will appear similar to the following:

Starting Oracle Universal Installer...

Checking swap space: must be greater than 500 MB. Actual 16896 MB Passed
The inventory pointer is located at /etc/oraInst.loc
'AttachHome' was successful.

This confirms that the Oracle Home has been successfully attached to the Central Inventory.

Step 4: Verify OPatch Inventory

After attaching the Oracle Home, verify the patch inventory again:

cd $ORACLE_HOME/OPatch
opatch lsinventory

The command should now display the installed patches and Oracle components without errors.

Important Oracle Files

File	Description
/etc/oraInst.loc	Inventory pointer file containing the Central Inventory location
oraInventory	Repository storing Oracle installation metadata
$ORACLE_HOME/OPatch	Directory containing the OPatch utility

 

Summary: OPatch Error Code 73 occurs when Oracle cannot locate the Central Inventory. This typically happens when the Oracle Home is not properly registered with the inventory.

Running the runInstaller attachHome command reattaches the Oracle Home to the Central Inventory and restores the ability to check patch inventory using OPatch.