Now that 12c is out, here’s an idea that might save you some time even if you have no intention of migrating to, or even testing, the product for a couple of years. Download the “List of bugs fixed in 12c”: you may find that it’s the best starting point when you’re trying to solve a problem in your current version of Oracle.
A slightly more sophisticated version of the same thing – download and install the product, then take a dump of v$system_fix_control – that may also give you some insight into anomalies (that are not necessarily declared as bugs) in the way Oracle – and the optimizer in particular – behave. I updated the referenced note to add in a couple of figures for 12.1 – but one figure that’s not there is the number of database parameters: now at 368 (in my Beta 3 release) and 3,333 in the x$.
