Oracle OPatch version and $ORACLE_HOME

After installing WebCenter Content version 11 PS7 with JDK 1.7.0_75 on a Linux server the Administration applets did not work. I found a patch on the Oracle support site that should fix this problem. If you are licensed to see the information on the Oracle support site please see the following patch “Patch 20378939: WEBCENTER CONTENT BUNDLE PATCH 11.1.1.8.10”.

The readme of the patch mentions “Download and install the latest version of OPatch (11.1.0.9.0 or higher)”.  The question you can ask yourself, can I use a version 12 OPatch to patch my WebCenter 11 product? This question remains because I decided  to be on the safe side and downloaded OPatch version 11.1.0.12.5. On a system with several Oracle products installed there are multiple $ORACLE_HOME directories that can be used with OPatch. The $ORACLE_HOME directory of WebCenter content is /home/oracle/mwhome/Oracle_ECM1 on my Linux system.

To install the patch, unzip the downloaded OPatch to /home/oracle/mwhome/Oracle_ECM1/OPatch.

The patch can be installed with the following commands:

• export ORACLE_HOME=/home/oracle/mwhome/Oracle_ECM1
• export PATH=$ORACLE_HOME/OPatch:$PATH
• opatch lshomes (This command lists the $ORACLE_HOMEs on the system)
• opatch lsinventory (This command does a check if there is a oraInventory directory)
  mkdir /oracle/home/PATCH_TOP
• “unzip the patch to the PATCH_TOP directory created”
• cd PATCH_TOP/20378939
• opatch apply

After applying the patch the Admin applets work perfect again.