OPatch failed with error code 73, The Central Inventory is corrupted:

Details of error as follows - 

oracle@orademodb01 ~

ORCL: opatch lsinv

Oracle Interim Patch Installer version 12.2.0.1.21

Copyright (c) 2021, Oracle Corporation.  All rights reserved.

Oracle Home       : /ora/db/tech_st/12.1.0.2

Central Inventory : /home/oracle/oraInventory

   from           : /ora/db/tech_st/12.1.0.2/oraInst.loc

OPatch version    : 12.2.0.1.21

OUI version       : 12.1.0.2.0

Log file location : /ora/db/tech_st/12.1.0.2/cfgtoollogs/opatch/opatch2021-09-28_16-16-01PM_1.log

List of Homes on this system:

  Home name= ORCL_Home, Location= "/ora/db/tech_st/12.1.0.2"

LsInventorySession failed: RawInventory gets null OracleHomeInfo

OPatch failed with error code 73

oracle@orademodb01 ~

Solution:

Turned out my inventory had not been updated with my new Oracle Home. When I looked in the inventory.xml file on my server, there was no entry for the installation there.

To fix this, add the new OH to your inventory. From your OH that is missing, do the following:

oracle@orademodb01 /ora/db/tech_st/12.1.0.2

ORCL: cat oraInst.loc

inventory_loc=/home/oracle/oraInventory

inst_group=oinstall

oracle@orademodb01 /ora/db/tech_st/12.1.0.2

ORCL: cat /etc/oraInst.loc

inventory_loc=/home/oracle/oraInventory

inst_group=oinstall

oracle@orademodb01 /ora/db/tech_st/12.1.0.2

ORCL: cd $ORACLE_HOME/oui/bin

oracle@orademodb01 /ora/db/tech_st/12.1.0.2/oui/bin

ORCL: ./runInstaller -invPtrLoc /ora/db/tech_st/12.1.0.2/oraInst.loc -attachHome ORACLE_HOME=/ora/db/tech_st/12.1.0.2 ORACLE_HOME_NAME="ORCL"

Starting Oracle Universal Installer...

Checking swap space: must be greater than 500 MB.   Actual 15517 MB    Passed

The inventory pointer is located at /ora/db/tech_st/12.1.0.2/oraInst.loc

'AttachHome' was successful.

oracle@orademodb01 /ora/db/tech_st/12.1.0.2/oui/bin