If you want to look in the alert log, but don’t remember/know where it is.
Query the database
If you can query the database, you can use the V$DIAG_INFO view as described in the Oracle Database Administrator’s Guide:
- Connect to the database with SQL*Plus or another query tool, such as SQL Developer.
- View the locations with the V$DIAG_INFO view.
The text-only alert log is found at the Diag Trace location and is called alert_SID.log.
The xml alert log is called log.xml and is found at the Diag Alert location.
Use find
If you can’t query the database, you can search for the alert_SID.log or log.xml files using find. If you have $ORACLE_BASE set, start searching there. Otherwise start at /u01/app/oracle (unless you have it installed somewhere else of course). Examples:
The documentation
This is described in the Oracle Database Administrator’s Guide in the Managing Diagnostic Data chapter. Documentation for all releases found here:
https://docs.oracle.com/en/database/oracle/oracle-database/index.html
