At the moment of failure, I would check what is the SCN of each datafile. Check controlfile SCN, current incarnation and etc. I remember that quite a few confusing situation like that were explained after some research and matching it all to what was originally restored. You didn't mention your controlfile restore - would there be any problem? Have you compared which backup pieces were used in failing and succeeded restores? And what controlfiles were used. On 9/7/07, Charles Schultz <sacrophyte@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: > To answer your question (and Randy's query), the restore was from a valid > incremental database backup. The perplexing part is that recovering to an > hour before my target time has no such problems. Randy, you made a point > about open transactions. I had the same thought, but how would an open > transaction get "stuck" in an archived log that is over one month old? > Something tells me that the stated archived log is a complete red herring, > since I can recover to 4:51, but not 5:51. I am trying to find out why that > error message popped up at all. -- Alex Gorbachev, Oracle DBA Brewer, The Pythian Group http://www.pythian.com/blogs/author/alex http://www.oracloid.com BAAG party - www.BattleAgainstAnyGuess.com -- //www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l