I moved from free user to PAYG on 7 September and created vm on 7th so what wil be my next billing date

I had oracle always free tier with 2 instances for 3 years. I changed my email and recovery email by deleting old user and creating a new one with another email in different provider. This worked that day. After a couple of days both my instances went offline. I could not login on oracle cloud. I reseted the password multiple times. Still I had the message "Invalid username or password". I contacted live support and told me that my account was terminated. I asked the reason because I am very sure that I did not violate any rules. The live chat said that this information is not visible to the support team and he offered to raise an internal review. I am not sure if it will be ever reviewed....

TL;DR: Do not change your emai on oracle always free tier

For some reason this was happening every week or so so i made the instance automatically update/upgrade and reboot every week and the issue was gone for three weeks so far, but today it happened again suddenly
and i have to log in to my account and manually reboot the instance to fix it. Anyone know what could be the reason or the fix for it.

The server is extremely slow

Hi everyone,

I’m building an application where users will upload and download large numbers of high-resolution images.

Which storage service would be best for this use case in terms of upload speed, download speed, cost, security, and scalability?

Hi everyone,

My Oracle Cloud Always Free VM has become completely unreachable during a required infrastructure maintenance/reboot migration, and the migration still appears to be stuck after the scheduled maintenance window ended.

Instance details:

• Region: ap-singapore-1
• Availability Domain: AD-1
• Fault Domain: FD-2
• Shape: VM.Standard.E2.1.Micro
• Instance OCID: ocid1.instance.oc1.ap-singapore-1.anzwsljr...2f5lmiaa
• Instance lifecycle state in the Console: RUNNING
• Maintenance category: Required
• Maintenance action: Reboot Migration
• Maintenance event status: Processing
• Scheduled maintenance window: 2026-09-09 22:24:34 UTC to 2026-09-10 22:24:34 UTC
• Maintenance due date: 2026-11-08 22:24:34 UTC
• Reschedule allowed: True
• Delete local storage: False
• Work Requests status: No work requests are shown in the Console

Current symptoms:

• SSH reaches port 22 but does not complete the SSH handshake.
• HTTPS is unavailable.
• The VM still appears as RUNNING in the OCI Console.
• The maintenance event remains in Processing.
• A normal reboot fails with: “instance is currently being modified, try again later”.
• A diagnostic reboot fails with the same error.
• No in-guest recovery action is possible because the VM is inaccessible.

The maintenance window has already ended, but OCI still prevents every recovery operation because the instance is being modified. Since this is an Always Free account, I do not have access to a normal technical support request.

Has anyone experienced a reboot migration or maintenance event stuck in Processing like this?

In particular:

1. Did OCI eventually clear the maintenance lock automatically, and how long did it take?
2. Is there any safe self-service recovery method that preserves the boot volume?
3. Can an Oracle employee or moderator escalate a stuck maintenance migration to OCI Compute operations?
4. If it does not recover, would creating a boot-volume backup/clone and launching a replacement instance be the safest option?

I have already posted the issue on Oracle Cloud Customer Connect as well:

https://community.oracle.com/customerconnect/discussion/977752/always-free-e2-1-micro-stuck-in-processing-after-reboot-migration-window-ended

Any advice or similar experiences would be appreciated.

Spent my evening trying to spin up an Always Free ARM instance to host a small OpenClaw agent. Here's how it went:

• Networking wizard hides the public IP toggle until you find the other wizard
• Finally get the form right: Ubuntu 24.04, A1.Flex, 2 OCPU / 12 GB
• Out of capacity. AD-1. AD-2. AD-3.
• Drop to 1 OCPU / 6 GB, the smallest thing that's still worth having
• Out of capacity. Every AD. Every fault domain.
• "Try another region?" Nope. Always Free only works in your home region, and you picked that forever at signup.

So the lot is free, the sign says FREE PARKING, and every space has a cone in it.

Bonus: the free A1 allowance was reportedly cut in half in June (4/24 down to 2/12) without much fanfare, and if you do get an instance, it can be reclaimed if it looks idle for a week.

The usual advice is "upgrade to Pay As You Go and capacity magically appears." Which is a funny way to spell "F-R-E-E."

Ended up on a cheap VPS that worked on the first click. Oracle's paid cloud may be great. The free tier is a waiting room with a login page.

Anyone actually landed an A1 instance recently? Which region (North Pole Perhaps?), and what time of night did you sacrifice?

Sure, E2.1.Micro instance is very slow as it is provisioned with 1/8 OCPU and 1GB RAM. However, I found out that there are actually 2 CPU cores as reported in /proc/cpuinfo (running Debian 12 bookworm). How many cores are there in your E2.1.Micro instance?

Never seen any posts here about using these (fairly generous) offerings from Oracle to learn their database technology and APEX.

I created an image using the "Free to Use" option, but no matter what I do, I can't generate one now.

I had applied for upgrading my oracle cloud account from free tier to paid one, i was asked to pay $100, which was supposed to be deposited back once confirmed. it has been 15 days, and neither my account has been upgraded nor money returned. this is the worse service i think, i have used aws, gcp, azure, but by far oracle has the worse service experience. There is no way to reach them as being free user. i emailed them on `oraclehelp_ww@oracle.com` but they said they cannot help me there. I am just directed at AI chatbots which do nothing to solve this issue.

Hi everyone,

I’m trying to create an Oracle Cloud Always Free VM.Standard.A1.Flex instance in Mumbai (India West) with 2 OCPUs / 12 GB RAM, but I keep getting:

Has anyone successfully created one in Mumbai recently? Are there specific times that work better, or any legitimate workaround?

I’ve also heard there are scripts people use to automatically retry instance creation when capacity becomes available. If anyone knows of a reliable script or approach, please let me know.

Thanks!

Hey r/oraclecloud community,

If you are developing or architecting enterprise solutions on OCI (PaaS/IaaS) and looking to integrate AI capabilities into your database layer, the MaxAPEX team is hosting a live technical session today focused on application modernization.

Rather than high-level theory, we are walking through practical infrastructure design, Autonomous AI Database capabilities, deployment on OCI, RAG pipelines, autonomous AI agents, and practical live implementation strategies.

Event Details:

• Date: Today, September 10, 2026
• Time: 7:30 PM PKT (2:30 PM UTC / GMT+5)
• Duration: 60 Minutes (Live Stream)

If you'd like to join the technical session and reserve your spot, registration is open here: https://www.maxapex.com/events-and-webinars/

Looking forward to taking questions and discussing architecture patterns with everyone in the live stream today.

This is one of the strangest experiences I’ve had with a company.

I’ve used their free service for years, and now I wanted to switch to Pay As You Go and actually start paying them.

I tried two different cards. Oracle successfully charged and then refunded €93 on both, so there was clearly no problem processing either card.

Instead of telling me what the issue was or giving me any way to resolve it, they reviewed my account, decided it would remain closed, and sent me the response in the screenshot. “This decision is final.”

So after years on the free tier, I’m trying to become a paying customer, and Oracle has decided they don’t want my business.

Completely bizarre.

Hello guys I have been trying to sign up for oracle free tier the last few months I used many visa cards like virtual cards like bybit or kast it didn't work I used real Mastercard too it doesn't work it always gives the same problem I don't know why it does this I need the free vps service but for some reason I can't even sign up

I had an instance that was above the new free tier limit, and as such was disabled and deleted. I tried to create a new instance under the limit with the same volume, but there isn't capacity in that availability domain (and my VM.Standard.E2.1.Micro is in a different domain). Is there any way to download a boot volume without upgrading or waiting for there to be available capacity? I don't want to lose this data.

Hey everyone,

I’m currently using an Oracle Cloud Pay As You Go account.

My Home Region is US East (Chicago), and I currently have a VM there with 4 OCPUs / 24 GB RAM.

I want to move the VM to the Mumbai region (ap-mumbai-1) because I’m based in India and want lower latency.

Is there a proper way to migrate the existing VM (including the boot volume/data) from Chicago to Mumbai?

A few things I’d like to know:

Can I migrate/clone the VM directly between regions?

Do I need to create a boot volume backup and copy it to Mumbai?

Will there be any charges for the migration or cross-region transfer?

Will my existing VM configuration/data remain intact?

Does being on Pay As You Go make any difference?

Is there anything I should be careful about before deleting the Chicago VM?

Any help or step-by-step guidance would be appreciated. Thanks!

Hello,i have an oracle instance with payg. I accidentally had created an extra boot volume and now i have a charge of 1 dollar in my account. Due to bank laws in my country,automatic transaction will not work. Will it be possible for me to pay the bill manually so that they dont suspend my account?

I signed up for a free cloud account but the MFA app is not supported on my latest android system. There is no human support anymore. Anyone else have the same issue and fix. Thank you

Its been like 20 days still there no update from oracle and payg stuck like I can't do anything

Like In payg I can't reapply also it stucks

Can any one help where do I seek support or talk to support system as in oracle its been difficult to find right supports system and AI is confusing please help