Roger - I don't see where you mentioned your Oracle version. RMAN has been notorious for being picky about the date format. I've generally heard of this in terms of recovery times and with Oracle 8i. Since I back up RMAN to disk, I don't use RMAN to backup the archive logs, so I haven't encountered this specific problem. Looking at Freeman's great Oracle9i Backup and Recovery, he uses the syntax: 'backup archivelog from time 'sysdate - 1'; Dennis Williams DBA Lifetouch, Inc. -----Original Message----- From: oracle-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:oracle-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Roger Xu Sent: Monday, October 11, 2004 4:55 PM To: Oracle-L@Freelists. Org (E-mail) Subject: RMAN: backup archivelog until time 'sysdate-2' delete input Hi list, It was "Mon Oct 11 16:12:07 CDT 2004" and I ran the following RMAN> run { 2> backup 3> format '/oback/obckp/redo-logs/DV2_%s_%p.logs' 4> archivelog until time 'sysdate-2' delete input; 5> } Since I specified "sysdate-2", I expected it only archive/delete up to "Oct 09 16:12:06". Was I right? But the truth is it archived/deleted redo file "1_1440.dbf", which was created between "Mon Oct 11 00:12:40 2004" and "Mon Oct 11 00:42:39 2004". WHY? My last three redo files was: .. .. .. Sat Oct 9 06:23:22 2004 .. .. .. Creating archive destination LOG_ARCHIVE_DEST_1: '/oracle/DV2/saparch/DV2arch/1_1439.dbf' Sat Oct 9 06:23:34 2004 .. .. .. Mon Oct 11 00:12:40 2004 .. .. .. Creating archive destination LOG_ARCHIVE_DEST_1: '/oracle/DV2/saparch/DV2arch/1_1440.dbf' .. .. .. Mon Oct 11 00:42:39 2004 .. .. .. Mon Oct 11 15:39:37 2004 .. .. .. Creating archive destination LOG_ARCHIVE_DEST_1: '/oracle/DV2/saparch/DV2arch/1_1441.dbf' Roger Xu Database Administrator Dr Pepper Bottling Company of Texas (972)721-8337 This e-mail is intended solely for the person or entity to which it is addressed and may contain confidential and/or privileged information. Any review, dissemination, copying, printing or other use of this e-mail by persons or entities other than the addressee is prohibited. If you have received this e-mail in error, please contact the sender immediately and delete the material. ____________________________________________________________________ This email has been scanned for all viruses by the MessageLabs Email Security System. Any questions please call 972-721-8257 or email your request to tech_support@xxxxxxxxxxxx -- //www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l -- //www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l