Quick Test With PSU 11.1.2.3.500

I did a quick test of applying the recent Patch Set Update .500 (patch nr. 17529887) on top of my existing EPM 11.1.2.3 virtual installation. At this moment I have Foundation, HFM and Financial Reporting installed on the VM (running on Server 2008 R2). As already noted by Cameron in his blog post and also by Oracle Support (see doc ID 1640411.1) the patch is not always installed successfully... Below you can see how your system should look like during the process and after applying the patch.

These are the steps I took:

1. Stopped all EPM services and processes.
2. Extracted the patch archive p17529887_11123000_MSWIN-x86-64.zip to D:\Oracle\Middleware\EPMSystem11R1\OPatch.
3. Renamed the directory 17529887_WIN64 to 17529887 as suggested in the readme file.
4. Tested that Oracle Inventory was intact using the following command lines:
• cd /d D:\Oracle\Middleware\EPMSystem11R1\OPatch
• opatch lsinv -jre d:\Oracle\Middleware\jdk160_35 -oh d:\Oracle\Middleware\EPMSystem11R1
5. Applied the patch:
• opatch apply 17529887 -jre d:\Oracle\Middleware\jdk160_35 -oh d:\Oracle\Middleware\EPMSystem11R1

Here's full text output from OPatch with a few notes:

-----------------------------

Oracle Interim Patch Installer version 11.1.0.9.9
Copyright (c) 2012, Oracle Corporation.  All rights reserved.


Oracle Home       : D:\Oracle\Middleware\EPMSystem11R1
Central Inventory : C:\Program Files\Oracle\Inventory
   from           : n/a
OPatch version    : 11.1.0.9.9
OUI version       : 11.1.0.9.0
Log file location : D:\Oracle\Middleware\EPMSystem11R1\cfgtoollogs\opatch\17529887_Apr_09_2
014_20_41_01\apply2014-04-09_20-41-00PM_1.log


OPatch detects the Middleware Home as "D:\Oracle\Middleware"

Applying interim patch '17529887' to OH 'D:\Oracle\Middleware\EPMSystem11R1'
Verifying environment and performing prerequisite checks...
Patch 17529887: Optional component(s) missing : [ oracle.epmsystem.fcc.webapp, 11.1.2.3.0 ] , [ oracle.epmsystem.fcc.arm.webapp, 11.1.2.3.0 ] , [ oracle.epmsystem.fcc, 11.1.2.3.0 ] , [ oracle.epmsystem.epma, 11.1.2.3.0 ] , [ oracle.epmsystem.disclosure.webapp, 11.1.2.3.0 ] , [ oracle.epmsystem.epma.datasync, 11.1.2.3.0 ] , [ oracle.epmsystem.epma.webapp, 11.1.2.3.0 ] , [ oracle.epmsystem.epma.batch, 11.1.2.3.0 ] , [ oracle.epmsystem.epma.service, 11.1.2.3.0 ] , [ oracle.epmsystem.erpi, 11.1.2.3.0 ] , [ oracle.epmsystem.planning, 11.1.2.3.0 ] , [ oracle.epmsystem.fdm, 11.1.2.3.0 ] , [ oracle.epmsystem.calc, 11.1.2.3.0 ] , [ oracle.epmsystem.essbase.server, 11.1.2.3.0 ] , [ oracle.epmsystem.disclosure, 11.1.2.3.0 ] , [ oracle.epmsystem.wa, 11.1.2.3.0 ] , [ oracle.epmsystem.profitability, 11.1.2.3.0 ] , [ oracle.epmsystem.ir, 11.1.2.3.0 ] , [ oracle.epmsystem.sf, 11.1.2.3.0 ] , [ oracle.epmsystem.sf.service, 11.1.2.3.0 ] , [ oracle.epmsystem.sf.webservice, 11.1.2.3.0 ]
All checks passed.
Backing up files...

Patching component oracle.epmsystem, 11.1.2.3.0...

Patching component oracle.epmsystem.ra, 11.1.2.3.0...

Patching component oracle.epmsystem.fr, 11.1.2.3.0...

Patching component oracle.epmsystem.foundation, 11.1.2.3.0...

Patching component oracle.epmsystem.foundation.workspace.webapp, 11.1.2.3.0...

Patching component oracle.epmsystem.fm.service, 11.1.2.3.0...

Patching component oracle.epmsystem.fm.webapp, 11.1.2.3.0...

Patching component oracle.epmsystem.fm.admclient, 11.1.2.3.0...

Patching component oracle.epmsystem.fm, 11.1.2.3.0...

Patching component oracle.epmsystem.ra.framework.webapp, 11.1.2.3.0...

Verifying the update...
        1 file(s) copied.
        1 file(s) copied.
Remove previous unzipped content for 16964825
The system cannot find the file specified.   <-- Note: These messages can be ignored. The script is just doing some cleanup in case the ADF patch directories would already be present in oracle_common\OPatch.
Remove previous unzipped content for 18362693
The system cannot find the file specified.
ant-unzip ADF 11.1.1.7.1
Buildfile: D:\Oracle\Middleware\EPMSystem11R1\OPatch\build.xml

unzip:
     [echo] unzipping ADF patch zip.
    [unzip] Expanding: D:\Oracle\Middleware\EPMSystem11R1\OPatch\p16964825_111170_Generic.zip into D:\Oracle\Middleware\oracle_common\OPatch

all:

BUILD SUCCESSFUL
Total time: 15 seconds
Buildfile: D:\Oracle\Middleware\EPMSystem11R1\OPatch\build.xml

unzip:
     [echo] unzipping ADF patch zip.
    [unzip] Expanding: D:\Oracle\Middleware\EPMSystem11R1\OPatch\p18362693_111171_Generic.zip into D:\Oracle\Middleware\oracle_common\OPatch

all:

BUILD SUCCESSFUL
Total time: 7 seconds
Applying ADF 11.1.1.7.1 OPatch 16964825   <-- Make sure the ADF patches get applied!
Oracle Interim Patch Installer version 11.1.0.9.9
Copyright (c) 2012, Oracle Corporation.  All rights reserved.


Oracle Home       : D:\Oracle\Middleware\oracle_common
Central Inventory : C:\Program Files\Oracle\Inventory
   from           : n/a
OPatch version    : 11.1.0.9.9
OUI version       : 11.1.0.9.0
Log file location : D:\Oracle\Middleware\oracle_common\cfgtoollogs\opatch\16964825_Apr_09_2014_20_48_52\apply2014-04-09_20-48-51PM_1.log


OPatch detects the Middleware Home as "D:\Oracle\Middleware"

Applying interim patch '16964825' to OH 'D:\Oracle\Middleware\oracle_common'
Verifying environment and performing prerequisite checks...
All checks passed.

Please shutdown Oracle instances running out of this ORACLE_HOME on the local sy
stem.
(Oracle Home = 'D:\Oracle\Middleware\oracle_common')


Is the local system ready for patching? [y|n]
Y (auto-answered by -silent)
User Responded with: Y
Backing up files...

Patching component oracle.jrf.adfrt, 11.1.1.7.0...

Verifying the update...
Patch 16964825 successfully applied
Log file location: D:\Oracle\Middleware\oracle_common\cfgtoollogs\opatch\16964825_Apr_09_2
014_20_48_52\apply2014-04-09_20-48-51PM_1.log

OPatch succeeded.
Applying ADF 11.1.1.7.1 OPatch 18362693
Oracle Interim Patch Installer version 11.1.0.9.9
Copyright (c) 2012, Oracle Corporation.  All rights reserved.


Oracle Home       : D:\Oracle\Middleware\oracle_common
Central Inventory : C:\Program Files\Oracle\Inventory
   from           : n/a
OPatch version    : 11.1.0.9.9
OUI version       : 11.1.0.9.0
Log file location : D:\Oracle\Middleware\oracle_common\cfgtoollogs\opatch\18362693_Apr_09_2014_20_49_24\apply2014-04-09_20-49-24PM_1.log


OPatch detects the Middleware Home as "D:\Oracle\Middleware"

Applying interim patch '18362693' to OH 'D:\Oracle\Middleware\oracle_common'
Verifying environment and performing prerequisite checks...
All checks passed.

Please shutdown Oracle instances running out of this ORACLE_HOME on the local system.
(Oracle Home = 'D:\Oracle\Middleware\oracle_common')


Is the local system ready for patching? [y|n]
Y (auto-answered by -silent)
User Responded with: Y
Backing up files...

Patching component oracle.jrf.adfrt, 11.1.1.7.0...

Verifying the update...
Patch 18362693 successfully applied
Log file location: D:\Oracle\Middleware\oracle_common\cfgtoollogs\opatch\18362693_Apr_09_2014_20_49_24\apply2014-04-09_20-49-24PM_1.log

OPatch succeeded.
Calling HFM_post.bat -apply
Microsoft (R) Windows Script Host Version 5.8
Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

build.properties deleted
D:\Oracle\Middleware\user_projects\epmsystem1
D:\\Oracle\\Middleware\\user_projects\\epmsystem1
Microsoft (R) Windows Script Host Version 5.8
Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

D:\Oracle\Middleware\EPMSystem11R1\Opatch\hfm_version_history.txt created
Microsoft (R) Windows Script Host Version 5.8
Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

Windows registry updated.
Microsoft (R) Windows Script Host Version 5.8
Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

Files copied to EPM_ORACLE_INSTANCE
Patch 17529887 successfully applied
Log file location: D:\Oracle\Middleware\EPMSystem11R1\cfgtoollogs\opatch\17529887_Apr_09_2014_20_41_01\apply2014-04-09_20-41-00PM_1.log

OPatch succeeded.

-----------------------------

Please note that the instructions for applying the patch continue beoynd running OPatch for several products such as FDQM, HPCM and FCM. Make sure you follow all the required steps to finalize the patch installation!

The issue that sometimes occurs with this patch is that the two ADF patches that are included and supposed to be applied automatically (16964825 and 18362693) are skipped for some reason. You should use OPatch to verify that the patches are present in the oracle_common home:

cd /d D:\Oracle\Middleware\oracle_common\OPatch
opatch lsinv -jre d:\Oracle\Middleware\jdk160_35 -oh d:\Oracle\Middleware\oracle_common

Results:

[...etc...]
Interim patches (2) :
Patch  18362693     : applied on Wed Apr 09 20:49:34 EEST 2014
[...etc...]
Patch  16964825     : applied on Wed Apr 09 20:49:14 EEST 2014

If the ADF patches are not listed you can find instructions for rectifying the situation in the Support article "Issues Using Planning after Applying EPM Patch 11.1.2.3.500 (Doc ID 1640411.1)". In short you just need to extract the ADF patches into oracle_common\OPatch and apply both patches after which you should be back on track again.

As a final note - here's an interesting fact I noted when digging in the files included with the PSU (from HFM_post.bat):

"In 11.1.2.1 patches we were changing the Workspace display version with a call to the EPM System registry. This is not done in 11.1.2.2 since the workspace display version is picked up from the adf ear or war manifest"

This is useful to know as having the correct version number shown in the About box in Workspace should now mean that the Java applications are successfully updated and deployed (instead of only updating the version numbers in HSS Registry for example).