Resolving OCI Database Management "UNKNOWN" Status and "Monitoring Stopped" Alerts

Introduction

If you are managing Oracle databases on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI), few sights are as jarring as seeing a critical "Monitoring Stopped - Metric collection issue" alarm fire out of nowhere. If you navigate to the OCI Console only to find your Managed Database status marked as UNKNOWN, you are likely dealing with a communication breakdown.

In this blog, I’ll walk through how a standard database password expiration policy can completely blindside your OCI cloud monitoring—and how to quickly fix it by resetting the DBSNMP user and updating the OCI vault. 

The issue typically begins with a critical automated alert from OCI Monitoring:

Alarm: OK_TO_FIRING : CRITICAL : Monitoring Stopped - Metric collection issue

When you log into the OCI Console to investigate, the database page shows:

• Status: UNKNOWN

• Metrics: All charts (CPU, Memory, Session limits) flatlined or showing empty gaps.

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Because the status is UNKNOWN (rather than DOWN), it indicates that while the infrastructure may be fine, the OCI Management Agent cannot pull telemetry from the database.

How to Resolve It (Step-by-Step)

1. First, you need to log into your database host via SSH and run SQL*Plus as SYSDBA to check the account's actual status and reset the password.

Tip: If you want to prevent this from happening again to your service accounts, consider assigning DBSNMP to a custom DB profile with a longer (or unlimited) password lifetime policy.

2. Since the DBSNMP user password has EXPIRED, I decided to extend the password by reusing the encrypted hash value. You can get the hash value using the below command. 

     

With the method of extending the DBSNMP password, there is no need to update the OCI vault secret because it is the same password. 

3. After extending the DBSNMP password, check the status of the database monitoring The status should change from UNKNOWN to UP.