Trace file size

Updated July 2023 for 23c

Here’s a convenient enhancement for tracing that came up on Twitter a few days ago – first in a tweet that I retweeted, then in a question from Christian Antognini based on this bit of the 12c Oracle documentation (opens in separate tab). The question was – does it work for you ?

The new description for max_dump_file_size says that for large enough values Oracle will split the file into multiple chunks of a few megabytes, using a suffix to identify the sequence of the chunks, keeping only the first chunk and the most recent chunks. Unfortunately this doesn’t seem to be true. However, prompted by Chris’ question I ran a quick query against the full parameter list looking for parameters with the word “trace” in their name:

rem
rem     Script:         params.sql
rem     Author:         Jonathan Lewis
rem     Dated:          Sept 1998 (and tweaks)
rem

define m_search = '&1'

set linesize 512
set pagesize 60
set trimspool on

column  name            format a57 heading "Parameter"
column  ses_val         format a30 word wrapped heading "Session Value"
column  sys_val         format a30 word wrapped heading "System Value"
column  description     format a70 heading "Description"

select
        /*+
                leading(nam val val2)
                full(name)
                full(val)  use_hash(val)  no_swap_join_inputs(val)
                full(val2) use_hash(val2) no_swap_join_inputs(val2)
        */
        nam.ksppinm                             name,
        val.ksppstvl                            ses_val,
        val2.ksppstvl                           sys_val,
        nam.ksppdesc                            description,
        nam.indx+1                              numb,
        nam.ksppity                             type,
        val.ksppstdf                            is_def,
        decode(bitand(nam.ksppiflg/256,1),
                1,'True',
                  'False'
        )                                       ses_mod,
        decode(bitand(nam.ksppiflg/65536,3),
                1,'Immediate',
                2,'Deferred' ,
                3,'Immediate',
                  'False'
        )                                       sys_mod,
        decode(bitand(val.ksppstvf,7),
                1,'Modified',
                4,'System Modified',
                  'False'
        )                                       is_mod,
        decode(bitand(val.ksppstvf,2),
                2,'True',
                  'False'
        )                                       is_adj,
        val.ksppstcmnt                          notes
from
        x$ksppi         nam,
        x$ksppcv        val,
        x$ksppsv        val2
where
        nam.indx = val.indx
and     val2.indx = val.indx
and     upper(ksppinm) like upper('%&m_search.%') escape '\'
order by
        nam.ksppinm
;

Glancing through the result I spotted a couple of interesting parameters with the letters “uts” in their names, so re-ran my query looking for all the “uts” parameters, getting the following list (plus a few others I’ve removed):

NAME                           SYS_VAL         DESCRIPTION
------------------------------ --------------- ---------------------------------------------
_diag_uts_control              0               UTS control parameter
_uts_first_segment_retain      TRUE            Should we retain the first trace segment
_uts_first_segment_size        0               Maximum size (in bytes) of first segments
_uts_trace_disk_threshold      0               Trace disk threshold parameter
_uts_trace_segment_size        0               Maximum size (in bytes) of a trace segment
_uts_trace_segments            5               Maximum number of trace segments 

Note particularly the “first segment size” and “trace segment size” – defaulting to zero (which often means a hidden internal setting, though that doesn’t seem to be the case here, but maybe that’s what the “diag control” is for). I haven’t investigated all the effects, but after a little experimentation I found that all I needed to do to get the behaviour attributed to max_dump_file_size was to set the following two parameters – which I could do at the session level.

alter session set "_uts_first_segment_size" = 5242880;
alter session set "_uts_trace_segment_size" = 5242880;

The minimum value for these parameters is the one I’ve shown above (5120 KB) and with the default value for _uts_trace_segments you will get a maximum of 5 trace files with sequential names like the following:

ls -ltr *4901*.trc

-rw-r----- 1 oracle oinstall 5243099 Jan 26 08:15 orcl_ora_4901_1.trc
-rw-r----- 1 oracle oinstall 5243064 Jan 26 08:15 orcl_ora_4901_12.trc
-rw-r----- 1 oracle oinstall 5243058 Jan 26 08:15 orcl_ora_4901_13.trc
-rw-r----- 1 oracle oinstall 5242993 Jan 26 08:15 orcl_ora_4901_14.trc
-rw-r----- 1 oracle oinstall 1363680 Jan 26 08:15 orcl_ora_4901.trc

As you can see I’m currently generating my 15th trace, and Oracle has kept the first one and the previous three. It’s always working on a file with no suffix to its name but as soon as that file hits its limiting size (plus or minus a few bytes) it gets its appropriate suffix, the oldest file is deleted, and a new trace file without a suffix is started.

Apart from the usual header information the trace files start and end with lines like:

*** TRACE CONTINUED FROM FILE /u01/app/oracle/diag/rdbms/orcl/orcl/trace/orcl_ora_4901_11.trc ***

*** TRACE SEGMENT RENAMED TO /u01/app/oracle/diag/rdbms/orcl/orcl/trace/orcl_ora_4901_12.trc ***

There is one little trap to watch out for: if you set either of these parameters to be larger than max_dump_file_size tracing stops as soon as one of the segments hits the max_dump_file_size and that trace file ends with the usual “overflow” message – e.g, when I changed the max_dump_file_size to 4M in mid-session:

*** DUMP FILE SIZE IS LIMITED TO 4194304 BYTES ***

In my case I had started with max_dump_file_size set to 20M, so I got lucky with my choice of 5M as the segment size.

Further investigation is left as an exercise to the interested reader.

Update (July 2023)

Running a test on 23c (Free) that had to generate a very large trace file I found that this feature seemed to be working as described in the manual with no intervention on my part.

There was one important difference between the 19c and the 23c parameters which might have been relevant: the 23c setting for parameter _uts_trace_disk_threshold was 1,073,741,824 (which looks like 1GB), but I couldn’t spot any obvious detail of my system that might connect a 1GB limit to the sudden appearance of trace file segmentation.

A detail which might be a valid inference from this accidental discovery was that the default for the _uts_trace_segment_size (and _uts_first_segment_size) seemed to be 8MB. I also noticed that the parameter _uts_trace_segments had dropped from 5 to 4, and since the parameter max_dump_file_size was set to 32MB I did wonder if the 8MB was derived as 32MB / 4 but, as I said 7 years ago, further investigation is left to the interested reader.