How To Fix the “ORACLE initialization or shutdown in progress” Error

Summary: in this tutorial, you will learn how to fix the ORACLE initialization or shutdown in progress error when you connect to the Oracle Database.

Sometimes, you may encounter the following error when you connect to an Oracle pluggable database in Oracle Database 12c:

An error was encountered performing the requested operation:

ORA-01033: ORACLE initialization or shutdown in progress
01033. 00000 - "ORACLE initialization or shutdown in progress"
*Cause: An attempt was made to log on while Oracle is being started up
or shutdown.
*Action: Wait a few minutes. Then retry the operation.
Vendor code 1033

To fix this issue, you use the follwing steps:

First, launch the SQL*Plus program and login to the database instance as a SYSDBA user:

Enter user-name: ot@pdborcl as sysdba
Enter password: <password>

This statement connected to the PDBORCL database using the OT user.

Second, issue the following statement to check the status of the current instance:

SQL> select status, database_status from v$instance;

STATUS       DATABASE_STATUS
------------ -----------------
MOUNTED      ACTIVE

The output showed that the instance status is mounted.

Third, change the state of the Oracle Database instance to OPEN:

SQL> alter database open;

Database altered.

For more information on the Oracle Database stages, check it out the Startup Oracle Database instance tutorial.

Finally, double check the database status by using the following statement:

select status, database_status from v$instance;

STATUS       DATABASE_STATUS
------------ -----------------
OPEN         ACTIVE

The instance status is open and available to all users for normal operations.

Now, you should be able to connect to the OT pluggable database without any issue.