Aargh..that sucks. How does it work in the real world? Do DBA's really keep track of backups by keeping the catalog upto date and deleting backup pieces manually everytime a backup fails? Or do they back up the rman logfiles as well and leave it at that? Come "show time" (or database recovery time), they learn it the hard way - that one of the incrementals was hosed. Then restore the backup RMAN logfiles to verify that a backup had indeed failed on such and such day. And THEN go about removing the pieces from the catalog?

Sorry about whining!

Thanks for your response Jeff.