This is the weirdest error that I've seen in Oracle. As shown below, the ALTER SYSTEM ARCHIVE LOG START ... command failed but the change was made. The archive log list result showed that the new archive destination has now been changed to ../archive from ../archive2. How did this happen?



SQL> shutdown immediate;
Database closed.
Database dismounted.
ORACLE instance shut down.
SQL> startup
ORACLE instance started.

Total System Global Area 22963468 bytes
Fixed Size 70924 bytes
Variable Size 6037504 bytes
Database Buffers 16777216 bytes
Redo Buffers 77824 bytes
Database mounted.
Database opened.

SQL> archive log list;
Database log mode Archive Mode
Automatic archival Enabled
Archive destination C:\oracle\oradata\mydb\archive2
Oldest online log sequence 1999
Next log sequence to archive 2001
Current log sequence 2001

SQL> alter system archive log start to 'C:\oracle\oradata\mydb\archive';
alter system archive log start to 'C:\oracle\oradata\mydb\archive'
*
ERROR at line 1:
ORA-16019: cannot use LOG_ARCHIVE_DEST_1 with LOG_ARCHIVE_DEST or
LOG_ARCHIVE_DUPLEX_DEST

SQL> archive log list;
Database log mode Archive Mode
Automatic archival Enabled
Archive destination C:\oracle\oradata\mydb\archive
Oldest online log sequence 1999
Next log sequence to archive 2001
Current log sequence 2001
SQL>