db2iupgrade fails with DBI1205E

Body

While working on a recent customer case, we encountered that db2iupgrade was failing with DBI1205E even if db2ckupgrade completed successfully earlier.

The customer was trying to upgrade from DB2 v10.1 to v10.5 but the error and resolution apply to all version upgrades.

Error :

The upgrade.log from db2iupgrade failure shows following error:

 Setting default global profile registry variables :.......Success      
 Initializing instance list :.......Success                             
 ERROR: An error occurred while upgrading the instance "db2inst1". The    
 return value is "1". If the problem persists contact your technical service   
 representative.                                                        
                                                                        
 ERROR: DBI1205E  One or more local databases cannot be upgraded to the
 version from which you are running this command.

Analysis/Cause :

The DBI1205E with return value "1" is a generic error. It is mostly related to problems with hostname and db catalog entries.

Solution :
 1> First check is to find out if the output of "hostname or uname" command and hostname entry in
db2nodes.cfg are identical.

Command to run on OS (linux, Unix) :
hostname
or
uname -a

Then check the hostname entry in db2nodes.cfg.

Both these hostnames should be identical. If it is not, please change the entry in db2nodes.cfg to the value returned by hostname or uname output.

This was the problem with our customer's case and after fixing db2nodes.cfg entry, the db2iupgrade was run successfully i.e. instance was upgraded.
 

2> In most cases, it is the db2nodes.cfg entry problem, but if it does not resolve an easy way to get around this  upgrade issue is to :
 1) Uncatalog the database  
 2) Then upgrade the instance
 3) Catalog the database back  
 4) Upgrade database

Note : Please always keep a full offline backup before any upgrade trials.