Descriptions of Oracle Wait Events

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Descriptions of Oracle Wait Events

This section provides detailed descriptions for those wait events of greatest interest. Where appropriate, pointers are provided to further information elsewhere in Oracle Database documentation. For a complete listing of wait events, in alphabetical order, you can issue the following SQL statement:

SQL> SELECT name FROM V$EVENT_NAME ORDER BY name;

alter system set dispatcher

A session has issued a statement ALTER SYSTEM SET DISPATCHER = string and is waiting for the dispatchers to get started.

Wait Time: The session will wait 1 / 100 of a second and check to see if the new dispatchers have started else the session will wait again

Parameter	Description
waited	Number of times that the session has waited 1 / 100 of a second

batched allocate scn lock request

A session is waiting on another process to allocate a system change number (SCN). If the foreground timed out waiting on a process to get the SCN, the foreground will get the SCN.

Wait Time: The wait time is 1 second on the assumption that an SCN allocation should normally need much less than that

Parameters: None

BFILE check if exists

The session waits to check if an external large object (LOB) exists.

Wait Time: The total elapsed time for the exists call

Parameter	Description
session#	See "session#"
waited	See "waited"

BFILE check if open

The session waits for an external large object (LOB) to open.

Wait Time: The total elapsed time for the isopen call

Parameter	Description
session#	See "session#"
waited	See "waited"

BFILE closure

The session waits for an external large object (LOB) to close.

Wait Time: The total elapsed time for the close call

Parameter	Description
session#	See "session#"
waited	See "waited"

BFILE get length

The session waits on a call to check the size of an external large object (LOB).

Wait Time: The total elapsed time for the call to check the LOB size

Parameter	Description
session#	See "session#"
waited	See "waited"

BFILE get name object

The session waits on a call to find or generate the external name of a external large object.

Wait Time: The total elapse time for make external file name to complete

Parameter	Description
session#	See "session#"
waited	See "waited"

BFILE get path object

The session is waiting on a call to find or generate the external path name of an external large object (LOB).

Wait Time: The total elapsed time for make external path to complete

Parameter	Description
session#	See "session#"
waited	See "waited"

BFILE internal seek

The session waits for a positioning call within the external large object (LOB) to complete.

Wait Time: The total elapse time for the seek to complete

Parameter	Description
session#	See "session#"
waited	See "waited"

BFILE open

The session waits for an external large object (LOB) to open.

Wait Time: The total elapsed time for the isopen call

Parameter	Description
session#	See "session#"
waited	See "waited"

BFILE read

The session waits for a read from a external large object (LOB) to complete.

Wait Time: The total elapse time for the read to complete

Parameter	Description
session#	See "session#"
waited	See "waited"

broadcast mesg queue transition

Processes enter "wait for broadcast mesg queue transition" when cleaning up a publisher channel handle to a RELIABLE broadcast channel. The publisher is responsible for moving the message to the free queue, but it cannot do so until the message is in the done queue. If the message is still not in the done queue, process enters this wait. This wait event will most likely show up when an Oracle process is about to exit normally, or when PMON cleans up a dead process.

Wait Time: Varies

Parameter	Description
channel handle	publisher channel handle pointer
message	broadcast message pointer
location	A number indicating the function in KSR where the process is waiting

broadcast mesg recovery queue transition

Processes enter "wait for broadcast mesg recovery queue transition" when cleaning up a publisher channel handle to a RELIABLE broadcast channel. The broadcasted message is in the recovery queue of another channel handle (for example, ch2). Process enters this wait, if the message is yet to be removed from the recovery queue of the ch2 channel handle. This wait event will most likely show up when an Oracle process is about to exit normally, or when PMON cleans up a dead process.

Wait Time: Varies

Parameter	Description
channel handle	Publisher channel handle pointer
message	Broadcast message pointer
location	A number indicating the function in KSR where the process is waiting

buffer busy waits

Wait until a buffer becomes available. This event happens because a buffer is either being read into the buffer cache by another session (and the session is waiting for that read to complete) or the buffer is the buffer cache, but in a incompatible mode (that is, some other session is changing the buffer).

Wait Time: Normal wait time is 1 second. If the session was waiting for a buffer during the last wait, then the next wait will be 3 seconds.

Parameter	Description
file#	See "file#"
block#	See "block#"
id	The buffer busy wait event is called from different places in the session

buffer deadlock

Oracle does not really wait on this event; the foreground only yields the CPU. Thus, the chances of catching this event are very low. This is not an application induced deadlock, but an assumed deadlock by the cache layer. The cache layer cannot get a buffer in a certain mode within a certain amount of time.

Wait Time: 0 seconds. The foreground process only yields the CPU and will usually be placed at the end of the CPU run queue.

Parameter	Description
class	See "class"
mode	See "mode"
flag	The flag points to the internal flags used by the session to get this block
dba	See "dba"

buffer latch

The session waits on the buffer hash chain latch. Primarily used in the dump routines.

Wait Time: 1 second

Parameter	Description
latch addr	The virtual address in the SGA where this latch is located. Use the following statement to find the name of this latch: select * from v$latch a, v$latchname b where addr = latch addr and a.latch# = b.latch#;
chain#	The index into array of buffer hash chains. When the chain is 0xfffffff, the foreground waits on the LRU latch.

buffer read retry

This event occurs only if the instance is mounted in shared mode (Oracle Real Application Cluster). During the read of the buffer, the contents changed. This means that either:

• The version number, dba, or the incarnation and sequence number stored in the block no longer match
• The checksum on the block does not match the checksum in the block

The block will be re-read (this may fail up to 3 times), then corruption is assumed and the corrupt block is dumped in the trace file.

Wait Time: The wait time is the elapsed time of the read

Parameter	Description
file#	See "file#"
block#	See "block#"

checkpoint completed

A session waits for a checkpoint to complete. This could happen, for example, during a close database or a local checkpoint.

Wait Time: 5 seconds

Parameters: None

cleanup of aborted processes

When a process spawn is aborted while the process spawning background is in the middle of spawning, the current session must wait until the pid of the new process is filled in. Once the pid is filled in, then the process spawn can be actually aborted.

Wait Time: Usually 3 seconds

Parameter	Description
location	Location of the wait

control file parallel write

This event occurs while the session is writing physical blocks to all control files. This happens when:

• The session starts a control file transaction (to make sure that the control files are up to date in case the session crashes before committing the control file transaction)
• The session commits a transaction to a control file
• Changing a generic entry in the control file, the new value is being written to all control files

Wait Time: The wait time is the time it takes to finish all writes to all control files

Parameter	Description
files	The number of control files to which the session is writing
blocks	The number of blocks that the session is writing to the control file
requests	The number of I/O requests which the session wants to write

control file sequential read

Reading from the control file. This happens in many cases. For example, while:

• Making a backup of the control files
• Sharing information (between instances) from the control file
• Reading other blocks from the control files
• Reading the header block

Wait Time: The wait time is the elapsed time of the read

Parameter	Description
file#	The control file from which the session is reading
block#	Block number in the control file from where the session starts to read. The block size is the physical block size of the port (usually 512 bytes, some UNIX ports have 1 or 2 Kilobytes).
blocks	The number of blocks that the session is trying to read

control file single write

This wait is signaled while the control file's shared information is written to disk. This is an atomic operation protected by an enqueue (CF), so that only one session at a time can write to the entire database.

Wait Time: The wait time is the elapsed time of the write

Parameter	Description
file#	This identifies the control file to which the session is currently writing
block#	Block number in the control file where the write begins. The block size is the as the physical block size of the port (usually 512 bytes, some UNIX ports have 1 or 2 Kilobytes).
blocks	The number of blocks that the session is trying to read

cursor: mutex S

A session waits on this event when it is requesting a mutex in shared mode, when another session is currently holding a this mutex in exclusive mode on the same cursor object.

Parameter	Description
P1	Hash value of cursor
P2	Mutex value (top 2 bytes contain SID holding mutex in exclusive mode, and bottom two bytes usually hold the value 0)
P3	Mutex where (an internal code locator) OR'd with Mutex Sleeps

cursor: mutex X

The session requests the mutex for a cursor object in exclusive mode, and it must wait because the resource is busy. The mutex is busy because either the mutex is being held in exclusive mode by another session or the mutex is being held shared by one or more sessions. The existing mutex holder(s) must release the mutex before the mutex can be granted exclusively.

Parameter	Description
P1	Hash value of cursor
P2	Mutex value (top 2 bytes contain SID holding mutex in exclusive mode, and bottom two bytes usually hold the value 0)
P3	Mutex where (an internal code locator) OR'd with Mutex Sleeps

cursor: pin S

A session waits on this event when it wants to update a shared mutex pin and another session is currently in the process of updating a shared mutex pin for the same cursor object.  This wait event should rarely be seen because a shared mutex pin update is very fast.

Wait Time: Microseconds

Parameter	Description
P1	Hash value of cursor
P2	Mutex value (top 2 bytes contains SID holding mutex in exclusive mode, and bottom two bytes usually hold the value 0)
P3	Mutex where (an internal code locator) OR'd with Mutex Sleeps

cursor: pin S wait on X

A session waits for this event when it is requesting a shared mutex pin and another session is holding an exclusive mutex pin on the same cursor object.

Wait Time: Microseconds

Parameter	Description
P1	Hash value of cursor
P2	Mutex value (top 2 bytes contains SID holding mutex in exclusive mode, and bottom two bytes usually hold the value 0)
P3	Mutex where (an internal code locator) OR'd with Mutex Sleeps

cursor: pin X

A session waits on this event when it is requesting an exclusive mutex pin for a cursor object and it must wait because the resource is busy. The mutex pin for a cursor object can be busy either because a session is already holding it exclusive, or there are one or more sessions which are holding shared mutex pin(s). The exclusive waiter must wait until all holders of the pin for that cursor object have released it, before it can be granted.

Wait Time: Microseconds

Parameter	Description
P1	Hash value of cursor
P2	Mutex value (top 2 bytes contains SID holding mutex in exclusive mode, and bottom two bytes usually hold the value 0)
P3	Mutex where (an internal code locator) OR'd with Mutex Sleeps

Data Guard: process clean up

During Data Guard process termination, Data Guard will wait for one second for process cleanup to complete.

Data Guard: process exit

During Data Guard process termination, Data Guard will wait for a process to exit before attempting any process cleanup that may be required.  It will sleep for one second between each check for process exit.

Data Guard Broker: single instance

The Data Guard Broker (DMON) process waits for the other instances in this cluster to complete shutdown before continuing with the broker operation.

Wait Time: Depends on the number of instances, but not exceeding 30 seconds times the number of instances

db file parallel read

This happens during recovery. It can also happen during buffer prefetching, as an optimization (rather than performing multiple single-block reads). Database blocks that need to be changed as part of recovery are read in parallel from the database.

Wait Time: Wait until all of the I/Os are completed

Parameter	Description
files	This indicates the number of files to which the session is reading
blocks	This indicates the total number of blocks to be read
requests	This indicates the total number of I/O requests, which will be the same as blocks

db file parallel write

This event occurs in the DBWR. It indicates that the DBWR is performing a parallel write to files and blocks. When the last I/O has gone to disk, the wait ends.

Wait Time: Wait until all of the I/Os are completed

Parameter	Description
requests	This indicates the total number of I/O requests, which will be the same as blocks
interrupt
timeout	This indicates the timeout value in hundredths of a second to wait for the I/O completion.

db file scattered read

Similar to db file sequential read, except that the session is reading multiple data blocks.

Wait Time: The wait time is the actual time it takes to do all of the I/Os

Parameter	Description
file#	See "file#"
block#	See "block#"
blocks	The number of blocks that the session is trying to read from the file# starting at block#

db file sequential read

The session waits while a sequential read from the database is performed. This event is also used for rebuilding the control file, dumping datafile headers, and getting the database file headers.

Wait Time: The wait time is the actual time it takes to do the I/O

Parameter	Description
file#	See "file#"
block#	See "block#"
blocks	This is the number of blocks that the session is trying to read (should be 1)

db file single write

This event is used to wait for the writing of the file headers.

Wait Time: The wait time is the actual time it takes to do the I/O

Parameter	Description
file#	See "file#"
block#	See "block#"
blocks	This is the number of blocks that the session is trying to write in file# starting at block#

DFS db file lock

This event occurs only for the DBWR in Real Application Clusters. Each DBWR of every instance holds a global lock on each file in shared mode. The instance that is trying to offline the file will escalate the global lock from shared to exclusive. This signals the other instances to synchronize their SGAs with the control file before the file can be taken offline. The name of this lock is DF (see Appendix D, "Oracle Enqueue Names" for more information).

Wait Time: 1 second in loop. The DBWR is waiting in a loop (sleep, check) for the other instances to downgrade to NULL mode. During this time, the DBWR cannot perform other tasks such as writing buffers.

Parameter	Description
file	See "file#"

DFS lock handle

The session waits for the lock handle of a global lock request. The lock handle identifies a global lock. With this lock handle, other operations can be performed on this global lock (to identify the global lock in future operations such as conversions or release). The global lock is maintained by the DLM.

Wait Time: The session waits in a loop until it has obtained the lock handle from the DLM. Inside the loop there is a wait of 0.5 seconds.

Parameter	Description
name	See "name and type"
mode	See "mode"
id1	See "id1"
id2	See "id2"

The session needs to get the lock handle.

direct path read

During Direct Path operations the data is asynchronously read from the database files. At some stage the session needs to make sure that all outstanding asynchronous I/O have been completed to disk. This can also happen if during a direct read no more slots are available to store outstanding load requests (a load request could consist of multiple I/Os).

Wait Time: 10 seconds. The session will be posted by the completing asynchronous I/O. It will never wait the entire 10 seconds. The session waits in a tight loop until all outstanding I/Os have completed.

Parameter	Description
descriptor address	This is a pointer to the I/O context of outstanding direct I/Os on which the session is currently waiting
first dba	The dba of the oldest I/O in the context referenced by the descriptor address
block cnt	Number of valid buffers in the context referenced by the descriptor address

direct path write

During Direct Path operations, the data is asynchronously written to the database files. At some stage the session needs to make sure that all outstanding asynchronous I/O have been completed to disk. This can also happen if, during a direct write, no more slots are available to store outstanding load requests (a load request could consist of multiple I/Os).

Wait Time: 10 seconds. The session will be posted by the completing asynchronous I/O. It will never wait the entire 10 seconds. The session waits in a tight loop until all outstanding I/Os have completed.

Parameter	Description
descriptor address	This is a pointer to the I/O context of outstanding direct I/Os on which the session is currently waiting
first dba	The dba of the oldest I/O in the context referenced by the descriptor address
block cnt	Number of valid buffers in the context referenced by the descriptor address

dispatcher shutdown

During shutdown immediate or normal, the shutdown process must wait for all the dispatchers to shutdown. As each dispatcher is signaled, the session that causes the shutdown is waits on this event until the requested dispatcher is no longer alive.

Wait Time: 1 second

Parameter	Description
waited	Indicates the cumulative wait time. After 5 minutes, the session writes to the alert and trace files to indicate that there might be a problem.

dispatcher timer

This basically means that the dispatcher is idle and waiting for some work to arrive.

Wait Time: 60 seconds

Parameter	Description
sleep time	The intended sleep time. The dispatcher will return to work sooner if it is posted by either data arriving on the network or by a post from a shared server process to send data back to the client.

duplicate cluster key

It is possible for a race condition to occur when creating a new cluster key. If it is found that another process has put the cluster key into the data/index block, then the session waits and retries. The retry should then find a valid cluster key.

Wait Time: 0.01 seconds

Parameter	Description
dba	The dba of the block into which the session is trying to insert a cluster key

enq: OW - initialization

A session will wait on this event if it is trying to initialize the database wallet, and another session has already begun an initialization.

Wait Time: Total time necessary to initialize the wallet context

Parameters: None

enq: OW - termination

A session will wait on this event if it is trying to terminate the database wallet, and another session has already begun a termination.

Wait Time: Total time necessary to deallocate memory used by the wallet context and terminate the context.

Parameters: None

enqueue

The session is waiting for a local enqueue. The wait is dependent on the name of the enqueue (see Appendix D, "Oracle Enqueue Names").

Wait Time: Depends on the enqueue name

Parameter	Description
name	See "name and type"
mode	See "mode"

flashback buf free by RVWR

This wait event only occurs when Flashback Database is turned on. A session waits for recovery writer (RVWR) to write flashback data to the flashback logs on disk because the buffers are full. Until RVWR can free up the buffers, the session may need to wait.

If this event becomes a top wait event for the database, it is typically because the file system or storage system for the Flash Recovery Area does not support enough bandwidth for Oracle to write the flashback database logs. Refer to the Flashback Database section in Oracle Database Backup and Recovery User's Guidefor tuning considerations.

Wait Time: 1 second

Parameters: None

free buffer waits

This will happen if:

• All buffer gets have been suspended. This could happen when a file was read-only and is now read-write. All the existing buffers need to be invalidated since they are not linked to lock elements (needed when mounted parallel (shared)). So cache buffers are not assigned to data block addresses until the invalidation is finished.
• The session moved some dirty buffers to the dirty queue and now this dirty queue is full. The dirty queue needs to be written first. The session will wait on this event and try again to find a free buffer
• This also happens after inspecting free buffer inspected buffers. If no free buffer is found, Oracle waits for one second, and then tries to get the buffer again (depends on the context). For more information, see free buffer inspected.

Wait Time: 1 second

Parameter	Description
file#	See "file#"
block#	See "block#"

free global transaction table entry

The session is waiting for a free slot in the global transaction table (used by the Distributed Database option). It will wait for 1 second and try again.

Wait Time: 1 second

Parameter	Description
tries	The number of times the session tried to find a free slot in the global transaction table

free process state object

Used during the creation of a process. The session will scan the process table and look for a free process slot. If none can be found, PMON is posted to check if all the processes currently in the process table are still alive. If there are dead processes, then PMON will clean them and make the process slot available to new processes. The waiting process will then rescan the process table to find the new slot.

Wait Time: 1 second

Parameters: None

GCS lock open S

The session waits for a resource get in SHARED mode on the block identified by file# and block#.

Wait Time: 1 second

Parameter	Description
file#	See "file#"
block#	See "block#"
class	See "class"

GCS lock open X

The session waits for a resource get in EXCLUSIVE mode on the block identified by file# and block#.

Wait Time: 1 second

Parameter	Description
file#	See "file#"
block#	See "block#"
lenum	See "le"

gcs remastering wait for drop pkey

A session dropping an object waits on the lock manager daemon (LMD) to remove the object's affinity to an instance.

Wait Time: 20 hundredths of a second

Parameter	Description
pkey	The object id of the database object being dropped

global cache busy

The session waits to convert a buffer from Shared Current to Exclusive Current status.

Wait Time: 1 second

Parameter	Description
file#	See "file#"
block#	See "block#"
le	See "lenum" on page A-8

global cache lock cleanup

PMON is waiting for an LCK process to cleanup the lock context after a foreground process died while doing a global cache lock operation.

Wait Time: 1 second

Parameter	Description
file#	See "file#"
block#	See "block#"
lenum	See "lenum" on page A-8

global cache freelist

All releasable locks are used and a new one has been requested. To make a resource element available, a resource element is pinged.

Wait Time: The duration of the resource get operation to ping the resource element

Parameters: None

inactive session

This event is used for two purposes:

• Switching sessions

If a time-out period has been specified, then wait that amount of time for the session to be detached.

• Killing sessions

From either KILL SESSION or internal request. Having posted a session that it should kill itself, wait for up to 1 minute for the session to terminate.

Wait Time: 1 second

Parameter	Description
session#	See "session#"
waited	See "waited"

inactive transaction branch

The session waits for a transaction branch that is currently used by another session.

Wait Time: 1 second

Parameter	Description
branch#	The serial number of the transaction for which the session is waiting
waited	See "waited"

index block split

While trying to find an index key in an index block, Oracle noticed that the index block was being split. Oracle will wait for the split to finish and try to find the key again.

Wait Time: The session will yield the CPU, so there is no actual waiting time

Parameter	Description
rootdba	The root of the index
level	This is the level of the block that the session is trying to split in the index. The leaf blocks are level 0. If the level is > 0, it is a branch block. (The root block can be considered a special branch block).
childdba	The block that the session is trying to split

instance state change

The session waits for SMON to enable or disable cache or transaction recovery. This usually happens during ALTER DATABASE OPEN or CLOSE.

Wait Time: Wait time depends on the amount of time the action takes (that is, the amount of recovery needed)

Parameter	Description
layer	This value can be 1 or 2. If 1, it means that the transaction layer wants transaction recovery to be performed. If 2, it means that cache recovery will be performed.
value	This value can be 0 (disable) or 1 (enable)
waited	The number of seconds waited so far

io done

The session waits for an I/O to complete or it waits for a slave process to become available to submit the I/O request. This event occurs on platforms that do not support asynchronous I/O.

Wait Time: 50 milliseconds

Parameter	Description
msg ptr	A pointer to the I/O request

kcl bg acks

The session waits for the background LCK process(es) to finish what they are doing. For example:

• Lock recovery
• Initializing the locks (start up)
• Finalizing the locks (shut down)

Wait Time: 10 seconds

Parameter	Description
count	The number of LCK processes that have finished
loops	The number times the process had to wait for the LCK processes to finish what they were doing

ksxr wait for mount shared

The cross instance broadcast facility of this Oracle instance is waiting for the database mount in shared mode to complete.

Wait Time: The time taken for the instance to mount. An indefinite wait on this event implies that the instance startup is hanging.

ktm: instance recovery

The session waits for SMON to finish the instance, transaction recovery, or sort segment cleanup.

Wait Time: The wait time can vary and depends on the amount of recovery needed

Parameter	Description
undo segment#	If the value is 0, SMON is probably performing instance recovery. If P1 > 0, use this query to find the undo segment: select * from v$rollstat where usn = undo segment#;

latch activity

This event is used as part of the process of determining whether a latch needs to be cleaned.

Wait Time: 0.05 to 0.1 seconds

Parameter	Description
address	The address of the latch that is being checked
number	The latch number of the latch that has activity. To find more information on the latch, use the following SQL statement: select * from v$latchname where latch# = number;
process#	If this is 0, it is the first phase of the in-flux tests

latch free

The process waits for a latch that is currently busy (held by another process).

Wait Time: The wait time increases exponentially and does not include spinning on the latch (active waiting). The maximum wait time also depends on the number of latches that the process is holding. There is an incremental wait of up to 2 seconds.

Parameter	Description
address	The address of the latch for which the process is waiting
number	The latch number that indexes in the V$LATCHNAME view.To find more information on the latch, use the following SQL statement: select * from v$latchname where latch# = number;
tries	A count of the number of times the process tried to get the latch (slow with spinning) and the process has to sleep

library cache load lock

The session tries to find the load lock for the database object so that it can load the object. The load lock is always obtained in Exclusive mode, so that no other process can load the same object. If the load lock is busy the session will wait on this event until the lock becomes available.

Wait Time: 3 seconds (1 second for PMON)

Parameter	Description
object address	Address of the object being loaded
lock address	Address of load lock being used
mask	Indicates which data pieces of the object that needs to be loaded

library cache lock

This event controls the concurrency between clients of the library cache. It acquires a lock on the object handle so that either:

• One client can prevent other clients from accessing the same object
• The client can maintain a dependency for a long time (for example, no other client can change the object)

This lock is also obtained to locate an object in the library cache.

Wait Time: 3 seconds (1 second for PMON)

Parameter	Description
handle address	Address of the object being loaded
lock address	Address of the load lock being used. This is not the same thing as a latch or an enqueue, it is a State Object.
mode	Indicates the data pieces of the object which need to be loaded
namespace	See "namespace"

library cache pin

This event manages library cache concurrency. Pinning an object causes the heaps to be loaded into memory. If a client wants to modify or examine the object, the client must acquire a pin after the lock.

Wait Time: 3 seconds (1 second for PMON)

Parameter	Description
handle address	Address of the object being loaded
pin address	Address of the load lock being used. This is not the same thing as a latch or an enqueue, it is basically a State Object.
mode	Indicates which data pieces of the object that needs to be loaded
namespace	See "namespace"

library cache shutdown

The process shutting down the instance waits for sessions to complete before proceeding with library cache shutdown.

LMON global data update

The rolling migration operation is waiting for a response from LMON to acknowledge the global data was updated.

Wait Time: The time it takes for LMON to publish/retrieve the global data associated with a

Parameters: None

lock manager wait for remote message

The lock manager waits for a message from a remote lock manager in the same configuration.

Wait Time: The elapsed time of the wait

Parameter	Description
waittime	The elapsed time of the actual wait

log buffer space

Waiting for space in the log buffer because the session is writing data into the log buffer faster than LGWR can write it out. Consider making the log buffer bigger if it is small, or moving the log files to faster disks such as striped disks.

Wait Time: Usually 1 second, but 5 seconds if it is waiting for a Switch Logfile to complete

Parameters: None

log file parallel write

Writing redo records to the redo log files from the log buffer.

Wait Time: Time it takes for the I/Os to complete. Even though redo records are written in parallel, the parallel write is not complete until the last I/O is on disk.

Parameter	Description
files	Number of files to be written
blocks	Number of blocks to be written
requests	Number of I/O requests

log file sequential read

Waiting for the read from this logfile to return. This is used to read redo records from the log file.

Wait Time: Time it takes to complete the physical I/O (read)

Parameter	Description
log#	The relative sequence number of the logfiles within a log group (used only when dumping the logfiles)
block#	See "block#"
blocks	The number of blocks to read

log file single write

Waiting for the write to this logfile to complete. This event is used while updating the header of the logfile. It is signaled when adding a log file member and when incrementing sequence numbers.

Wait Time: Time it takes for the physical I/O (write) to complete

Parameter	Description
log#	This is the number of the group/log to which the session is currently writing
block#	See "block#"
blocks	The number of blocks to write

log file switch (archiving needed)

Waiting for a log switch because the log that the LGWR will be switching into has not been archived yet. Check the alert file to make sure that archiving has not stopped due to a failed archive write. To speed archiving, consider adding more archive processes or putting the archive files on striped disks.

Wait Time: 1 second

Parameters: None

log file switch (checkpoint incomplete)

Waiting for a log switch because the session cannot wrap into the next log. Wrapping cannot be performed because the checkpoint for that log has not completed.

Wait Time: 1 second

Parameters: None

log file switch (clearing log file)

Waiting for a log switch because the log is being cleared due to a CLEAR LOGFILE command or implicit clear logfile executed by recovery.

Wait Time: 1 second

Parameters: None

log file switch (private strand flush incomplete)

User sessions trying to generate redo, wait on this event when LGWR waits for DBWR to complete flushing redo from IMU buffers into the log buffer; when DBWR is complete LGWR can then finish writing the current log, and then switch log files.

Wait Time: 1 second

Parameters: None

log file switch completion

Waiting for a log switch to complete.

Wait Time: 1 second

Parameters: None

log file sync

When a user session commits, the session's redo information needs to be flushed to the redo logfile. The user session will post the LGWR to write the log buffer to the redo log file. When the LGWR has finished writing, it will post the user session.

Wait Time: The wait time includes the writing of the log buffer and the post.

Parameter	Description
buffer#	The number of the physical buffer in the redo log buffer that needs to be synchronized

log switch/archive

Used as part of the ALTER SYSTEM ARCHIVE LOG CHANGE scn statement. The session waits for the current log from all open threads to be archived.

Wait Time: Wait for up to 10 seconds

Parameter	Description
thread#	The thread number of the thread that is currently archiving its current log

optimizer stats update retry

When concurrent sessions try to update optimizer statistics for the same object, all of them except the one that successfully acquired all necessary locks/pins on the library/row cache entries, wait on this wait event and then retry locking after a short period of time. In addition to explicit statistics gathering and maintenance operations using the DBMS_STATS package, Oracle database itself may try to update statistics for some objects, either on behalf of the user or for its own maintenance purposes.

Wait Time: 10 ms

Parameters: None

parallel recovery change buffer free

The parallel recovery coordinator is waiting for a change mapping buffer to be released by one of the recovery slaves.

Wait Time: 100ms

Parameters: None

parallel recovery control message reply

The parallel recovery coordinator is waiting for all recovery slaves to respond to a synchronous control message.

Wait Time: 100ms

Parameters: None

parallel recovery coord send blocked

The parallel recovery coordinator is unable to send a redo change message because the recovery slave is still actively applying redo that it has already received and has not yet released the channel.

Wait Time: 100ms

Parameters: None

parallel recovery coord wait for reply

The parallel recovery coordinator is waiting for all recovery slaves to exit.

Wait Time: 100ms

Parameters: None

parallel recovery coordinator waits for slave cleanup

The parallel recovery coordinator is waiting for all recovery slaves to exit gracefully.

Wait Time: 10ms

Parameters: None

parallel recovery read buffer free

The parallel recovery coordinator is waiting for a log read buffer to be released by all recovery slaves. Only after every recovery slave finishes applying redo from a log read buffer, can the buffer be used by the coordinator to issue the next log read.

Wait Time: 100ms

Parameters: None

parallel recovery slave next change

A parallel recovery slave is idle and waiting for the next change message from the coordinator.

Wait Time: 100ms

Parameters: None

pending global transaction(s)

This event should happen only during testing. The session waits for pending transactions to clear.

Wait Time: 30 seconds

Parameter	Description
scans	Number of times the session has scanned the PENDING_TRANS$ table

pipe get

The session waits for a message to be received on the pipe or for the pipe timer to expire.

Wait Time: There is a 5 second wake up (check) and the pipe timer set by the user

Parameter	Description
handle address	The library cache object handle for this pipe
buffer length	The length of the buffer
timeout	The pipe timer set by the user

pipe put

The session waits for the pipe send timer to expire or for space to be made available in the pipe.

Wait Time: There is the 5 second wakeup (check) and the user-supplied timeout value

Parameter	Description
handle address	The library cache object handle for this pipe
record length	The length of the record or buffer that has been put into the pipe
timeout	The pipe timer set by the user

PL/SQL lock timer

This event is called through the DBMS_LOCK.SLEEP procedure or USER_LOCK.SLEEP procedure. This event will most likely originate from procedures written by a user.

Wait Time: The wait time is in hundredths of seconds and is dependent on the user context

Parameter	Description
duration	The duration that the user specified in the DBMS_LOCK.SLEEP or USER_LOCK.SLEEP procedures

pmon timer

This is the main wait event for PMON. When PMON is idle, it is waiting on this event.

Wait Time: Up to 3 seconds, if not posted before

Parameter	Description
duration	The actual amount of time that the PMON is trying to sleep

prewarm transfer retry

Release a hash latch, then wait under this event before attempting to re-acquire the hash latch.

Wait Time: 10ms

Parameters: None

prior process spawner to be cleaned up

When a prior process has died while spawning a background, the current process which is trying to spawn new a background must wait until the prior process state is cleaned up.

Wait Time: Usually 3 - 10 seconds

Parameter	Description
process_pid	process identifier (see V$PROCESS.PID) of the process whose state needs to be cleaned up.
process_sno	process serial number (see V$PROCESS.SERIAL#) of the process whose state needs to be cleaned up.

process startup

Wait for a shared server, Dispatcher, or other background process to start.

Wait Time: Wait up to 1 second for a background process to start. If timed out, then re-wait until 5 minutes have passed and signal an error. If the process has started, the event will acknowledge this.

Parameter	Description
type	The process type that was started
process#	The process number of the process being started
waited	Cumulative time waited for the process to start

PX Deque wait

The process is waiting for a message during a parallel execute.

Wait Time: The wait time depends on how quickly the message arrives. Wait times can vary, but it will normally be a short period of time.

Parameter	Description
reason	The reason for dequeuing
sleeptime	The amount of time that the session slept
loop	The total number of times that the session has slept

PX qref latch

Each parallel execution process has a parallel execution qref latch, which needs to be acquired before the queue buffers can be manipulated.

Wait Time: Wait up to 1 second

Parameter	Description
function	Indicates the type of wait that the session is doing
sleeptime	The amount of time that the session waits (in hundredths of a second)
qref	The address of the process queue for which the session is waits

PX server shutdown

During normal or immediate shutdown the parallel execution slaves are posted to shutdown cleanly. If any parallel execution slaves are still alive after 10 seconds, they are killed.

Wait Time: Wait up to 0.5 seconds

Parameter	Description
nalive	The number of parallel execution slaves that are still running
sleeptime	The total sleeptime since the session started to wait on this event
loop	The number of times the session waited for this event

PX signal server

This event occurs only in Exclusive mode. The query coordinator is signalling the Query Slaves that an error has occurred.

Wait Time: 0.5 seconds

Parameter	Description
serial	The serial number of the slave process queue
error	The error that has occurred
nbusy	The number of slave processes that are still busy

Streams AQ: waiting for messages in the queue

The session is waiting on an empty OLTP queue (Advanced Queuing) for a message to arrive so that the session can dequeue that message.

Wait Time: The amount of time that the session wants to wait is determined by the parameter wait time

Parameter	Description
queue id	The ID of the OLTP queue for which this session is waiting
process#	The process number of the process in which this session runs
wait time	The intended wait time for this session

rdbms ipc message

The background processes (LGWR, DBWR, LMS0) use this event to indicate that they are idle and are waiting for the foreground processes to send them an IPC message to do some work.

Wait Time: Up to 3 seconds. The parameter timeout shows the true sleep time.

Parameter	Description
timeout	The amount of time that the session waits for an IPC message

rdbms ipc message block

This event indicates that all message blocks are in use and that the session had to wait for a message block to become available.

Wait Time: Wait up to 60 seconds

Parameters: None

rdbms ipc reply

This event is used to wait for a reply from one of the background processes.

Wait Time: The wait time is specified by the user and is indicated by the parameter timeout.

Parameter	Description
from_process	The background process for which the session is waiting. The wait is for a reply to an IPC message sent by the session.
timeout	The amount of time in seconds that this process will wait for a reply

read by other session

This event occurs when a session requests a buffer that is currently being read into the buffer cache by another session. Prior to release 10.1, waits for this event were grouped with the other reasons for waiting for buffers under the 'buffer busy wait' event

Wait Time: Time waited for the buffer to be read by the other session (in microseconds)

Parameter	Description
file#	See "file#"
block#	See "block#"
class#	See "class"

recovery read

A parallel recovery slave (or serial recovery process) is waiting for a batch of data block reads to complete.

Wait Time: Time it takes to complete the physical I/O (read)

Parameters: None

resmgr: become active

The session is waiting for a resource manager active session slot. This event occurs when the resource manager is enabled and the number of active sessions in the session's current consumer group exceeds the current resource plan's active session limit for the consumer group. To reduce the occurrence of this wait event, increase the active session limit for the session's current consumer group.

Wait Time: The time the session waited to be allocated an active session slot

Parameter	Description
location	location of the wait

resmgr: cpu quantum

The session is waiting to be allocated a quantum of cpu. This event occurs when the resource manager is enabled and is throttling CPU consumption. To reduce the occurrence of this wait event, increase the CPU allocation for the sessions's current consumer group.

Wait Time: The time the session waited to acquire a CPU quantum

Parameter	Description
location	Location of the wait

rolling migration: cluster quisce

This is the wait event that instances wait on when cluster is about to start a rolling migration. The instances are waiting for any privileged operations that blocks rolling migration to complete before allowing rolling migration.

Wait Time: 1 second

Parameter	Description
location	Its value will be 1 if the wait is for completion of the privileged operations so that a rolling upgrade/downgrade can start. Its value will be 2 if the wait is for completion of the rolling upgrade/downgrade on all the nodes in the cluster.
waits	The number of seconds spent waiting at the current location.

row cache lock

The session is trying to get a data dictionary lock.

Wait Time: Wait up to 60 seconds.

Parameter	Description
cache id	The CACHE# column value in the V$ROWCACHE view
mode	See "mode"
request	The pipe timer set by the user

sbtbufinfo

This function is called when Oracle needs to discover the size, and number, of I/O buffers that have been allocated by the SBT layer.  It should be very fast and never block.

Wait Time: Less than one millisecond

Parameters: None

sbtgetbuf

This function obtains one I/O buffer that Oracle will use for I/O during a backup job.

Wait Time: Less than one millisecond

Parameters: None

sbtmapbuf

This is an internal function used to facilitate multi-process buffer management.  It should be very fast and never block.

Wait Time: Less than one millisecond

Parameters: None

sbtrelbuf

This function releases an I/O buffer that has been already processed during a restore job, so that the SBT layer can fill it with more data.  It should be very fast and never block.

Wait Time: Less than one millisecond

Parameters: None

scginq AST call

Called by the session to find the highest lock mode that is held on a resource.

Wait Time: Wait up to 0.2 seconds, but the wait will continue until the NULL mode Acquisition AST has fired.

Parameters: None

SGA: allocation forcing component growth

Process waiting on an immediate mode memory transfer with auto-tune SGA after a 4031 for MMAN to get the memory and post it.

Wait Time: 10 msec

Parameters: None

SGA: MMAN sleep for component shrink

MMAN to wait and post itself for satisfying an auto-tuned memory request while trying to fully free a component's quiesced granules. In Release 10.1, the name of this event was 'wait for SGA component shrink'.

Wait Time: 10 msec

Parameter	Description
P1	component_id (corresponding to the memory pool)
P2	Current size in granules
P3	Target size in granules

SGA: sga_target resize

Memory resize requests wait while sga target is being resized.In Release 10.1, the name of this event was 'wait for sga_target resize'.

Wait Time: 10 msec

Parameters: None

Shared IO Pool Memory

Wait until a shared I/O pool buffer becomes available. This happens when processes are using these buffers for I/O and the current process needs to wait for the release of any one of the buffers to the shared I/O pool.

Wait Time: 10msec

Parameters: None

single-task message

When running single task, this event indicates that the session waits for the client side of the executable.

Wait Time: Total elapsed time that this session spent in the user application

Parameters: None

smon timer

This is the main idle event for SMON. SMON will be waiting on this event most of the time until it times out or is posted by another process.

Wait Time: 5 minutes (300 seconds)

Parameter	Description
sleeptime	The amount of time that SMON tries to wait on this event in seconds
failed	The number of times SMON was posted when there some kind of error

SQL*Net break/reset to client

The server sends a break or reset message to the client. The session running on the server waits for a reply from the client.

Wait Time: The actual time it takes for the break or reset message to return from the client

Parameter	Description
driver id	See "driver id"
break?	See "break?"

SQL*Net break/reset to dblink

Same as SQL*Net break/reset to client, but in this case, the break/reset message is sent to another server process over a database link.

Wait Time: The actual time it takes for the break or reset message to return from the other server process

Parameter	Description
driver id	See "driver id"
break?	See "break?"

SQL*Net message from client

The server process (foreground process) waits for a message from the client process to arrive.

Wait Time: The time it took for a message to arrive from the client since the last message was sent to the client

Parameter	Description
driver id	See "driver id"
#bytes	The number of bytes received by the server (foreground process) from the client.

SQL*Net message from dblink

The session waits while the server process (foreground process) receives messages over a database link from another server process.

Wait Time: The time it took for a message to arrive from another server (foreground process) since a message was sent to the other foreground process.

Parameter	Description
driver id	See "driver id"
#bytes	The number of bytes received by the server (foreground process) from another foreground process over a database link.

SQL*Net message to client

The server (foreground process) is sending a message to the client.

Wait Time: The actual time the send takes

Parameter	Description
driver id	See "driver id"
#bytes	The number of bytes sent by the server process to the client

SQL*Net message to dblink

The server process (foreground process) is sending a message over a database link to another server process.

Wait Time: The actual time the send takes

Parameter	Description
driver id	See "driver id"
#bytes	The number of bytes sent by the server process to another server process over a database link

SQL*Net more data from client

The server is waiting on the client to send more data to its client shadow process, in an already initiated operation.

Wait Time: The time waited depends on the time it took to receive the data (including the waiting time)

Parameter	Description
driver id	See "driver id"
#bytes	The number of bytes received from the client

SQL*Net more data from dblink

The foreground process is expecting more data from a data base link.

Wait Time: The total time it takes to read the data from the database link (including the waiting time for the data to arrive)

Parameter	Description
driver id	See "driver id"
#bytes	The number of bytes received

SQL*Net more data to client

The server process is sending more data/messages to the client. The previous operation to the client was also a send.

Wait Time: The actual time it took for the send to complete

Parameter	Description
driver id	See "driver id"
#bytes	The number of bytes that are being sent to the client

SQL*Net more data to dblink

The event indicates that the server is sending data over a database link again. The previous operation over this database link was also a send.

Wait Time: The actual time it takes to send the data to the other server

Parameter	Description
driver id	See "driver id"
#bytes	The number of bytes that are sent over the database link to the other server process

switch logfile command

The session waits on the user command SWITCH LOGFILE to complete.

Wait Time: 5 seconds

Parameters: None

timer in sksawat

The session waits for the Archiver (ARCH) asynchronous I/O to complete.

Wait Time: 0.01 seconds

Parameters: None

transaction

Wait for a blocking transaction to be rolled back. Continue waiting until the transaction has been rolled back.

Wait Time: 1 second

Parameter	Description
undo seg#	The rollback segment ID
slot#	The slot ID inside the rollback segment
wrap#	The sequence number that is incremented for each transaction
count	The number of times that the session has waited on this transaction

unbound tx

The session waits to see if there are any transactions that have been started but do not have a Rollback Segment associated with them.

Wait Time: 1 second

Parameters: None

undo_retention publish retry

This wait can occur for two reasons.  A session issuing an ALTER SYSTEM SET UNDO_RETENTION may wait on this event wait while a cluster reconfiguration takes place.  Or the background process MMNL may wait for cluster reconfiguration while attempting to determine the max UNDO_RETENTION.

Wait time: 1 second

Parameter	Description
P1	Identifies where the retry is happening. Id = 1 retry while publishing into the max undo_retention namespace. Id = 2 retry while iterator accessing the max undo_retention namespace
P2	Retry count (maximum  number of retries is 5)

undo segment extension

The undo segment is being extended or shrunk. The session must wait until the operation on the undo segment has finished.

Wait Time: 0.01 seconds

Parameter	Description
segment#	The ID of the rollback segment that is being extended or shrunk

undo segment recovery

PMON is rolling back a dead transaction. The wait continues until rollback finishes.

Wait Time: 3 seconds

Parameter	Description
segment#	The ID of the rollback segment that contains the transaction that is being rolled back
tx flags	The transaction flags (options) set for the transaction that is being rolled back

undo segment tx slot

Wait for a transaction slot to become available within the selected rollback segment. Continue waiting until the slot is available.

Wait Time: 1 second

Parameter	Description
segment#	The ID of the rollback segment that contains the transaction that is being rolled back

virtual circuit status

The session waits for a virtual circuit to return a message type indicated by status.

Wait Time: 30 seconds

Parameter	Description
circuit#	Indicates the virtual circuit# being waited on
status	Indicates what the session is waiting for

WCR: replay client notify

During replay, the Workload Replay Client always keeps an open connection to the database to detect some special errors. This session will normally be in the wait state until some specific replay-related exception occurs.

Wait Time: Waits until notified. Times out every 30 seconds.

Parameter	Description
who am I	Identifies the reason for wait for the admin thread. 1 - waiting for REPLAY.START() to be issued. 2 - waiting for the replay to run to completion or REPLAY.CANCEL() to be issued.

WCR: replay clock

A session will wait on this event during replay if it has some logical dependencies on another session that has not yet committed its work.

Wait Time: Depends upon the amount of row lock contention in the original capture

Parameter	Description
wait for scn's hi 4 bytes	High 4 bytes of the 8-byte replay SCN that the session is waiting on
wait for scn's lo 4 bytes	Low 4 bytes of the 8-byte replay SCN that the session is waiting on

WCR: replay lock order

A session will wait on this event during replay if it saw some lock contention during capture.

Wait Time: Depends upon the amount of row lock contention in the original capture

Parameter	Description
wait for scn's hi 4 bytes	High 4 bytes of the 8-byte replay SCN that the session is waiting on
wait for scn's lo 4 bytes	Low 4 bytes of the 8-byte replay SCN that the session is waiting on

WCR: replay paused

When the user issues a DBMS_WORKLOAD_REPLAY.PAUSE_REPLAY command, all the replayed sessions are waiting on this wait event until replay is resumed.

Parameters: None

WCR: Sync context busy

In the default replay mode, commits during replay are synchronized to follow the same order as capture. All commits are serialized using the Sync context. A replayed session will wait on this event if it is trying to commit at the same time as another replayed session.

Parameters: None

WMON goes to sleep

WMON is the UNIX-specific Wait Monitor, that can be used to reduce the number of system calls related to setting timers for posting or waiting in Oracle. You need to set an initialization parameter that enables the WMON process.

Wait Time: Depends on the next timeout

Parameters: None

write complete waits

The session waits for a buffer to be written. The write is caused by normal aging or by a cross-instance call.

Wait Time: 1 second

Parameter	Description
file#	The rollback segment id that contains the transaction that is being rolled back
block#	The transaction flags (options) set for the transaction that is being rolled back
id	Identifies the reason for waiting

writes stopped by instance recovery or database suspension

The session is blocked until the instance that started Instance Recovery is finished.

Wait Time: 5 seconds

Parameter	Description
bythread#	The rollback segment id that contains the transaction that is being rolled back
ourthread#	The current instance thread number

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