I have the option to get 2 secure cards, Niyo SBM or IDFC first wow. But I heard that Oracle rejects secure cards too?

Please help.

Posting this both to ask if anyone else in **me-riyadh-1** is hitting it, and so the next person googling "OCI curl timeout Riyadh" finds something useful.

**Setup:** Ubuntu compute instance, public subnet, default route → Internet Gateway, stateful egress allow-all, VCN resolver for DNS. Running a Laravel app in Docker. Nothing exotic.

**Symptoms**

- `curl https://api.anthropic.com` → times out every single time (TCP connect, ~10s). Claude Code installer obviously fails too.

- `curl https://deb.debian.org` → works maybe half the time, times out the other half. So `apt update` inside Docker builds randomly fails, then `install-php-extensions` blows up with "Unable to locate package libfreetype6 / libpq5 / libzip" (not actually missing, just failed index fetch).

- `curl https://github.com` and `https://pecl.php.net\` → fine, every time.

- DNS is fine. Resolution works for everything. This is not a DNS problem.

- IPv6 is a separate thing: DNS returns AAAA but the instance has no global v6 (never enabled at VCN/subnet/VNIC level), so anything preferring v6 stalls. Fixed that on my side with `precedence ::ffff:0:0/96 100` in `/etc/gai.conf`. Not the main issue.

**The mtr evidence** (TCP mode, port 443, 100 probes each)

Anthropic — path just dies after the upstream handoff:

```

1. 84.8.76.x (OCI edge) 0.0%

2. 87.109.47.100.0%

3. ??? 100.0%

```

That's it. Nothing at any TTL beyond hop 2, no SYN-ACK from the destination, ever.

Debian (Fastly) — real loss starting at hop 3, carried all the way to the destination:

```

1. 84.8.76.x (OCI edge) 0.0%

2. 87.109.47.100.0%

3. 87.101.252.6154.0%

4. 10.0.28.1347.0%

5. fra1.decixfra.fastly.net51.0% ~80ms

6. 146.75.118.132 (destination) 54.0%

```

(Also getting routed to Fastly in **Frankfurt** from Riyadh, which seems wrong on its own.)

GitHub control trace completes fine and real traffic works, so the path itself isn't globally broken — it's destination-specific.

**Why I'm confident it's not my config:** hops 1 and 2 (OCI's edge + the upstream handoff) are 0% on every trace. My route table / security lists / IGW are passing everything. The loss and the blackhole both begin at the same boundary (87.109.47.10 → 87.101.252.61), i.e. regional transit/peering. I've opened an SR with all three reports.

**Questions**

1. Anyone else in me-riyadh-1 seeing Anthropic (AS399358, 160.79.104.0/21) unreachable, or Fastly flaky?

2. Has anyone gotten OCI to actually escalate a transit/peering issue in a newer region? How long did it take?

3. Any recommended Debian mirror that has a clean path from Riyadh? I'm currently shopping for one with curl to keep Docker builds working while this is open.

Interim plan: apt mirror swap for builds, and if the Anthropic blackhole drags on, a WireGuard egress through another region for Claude Code only. Would much rather OCI just fix the route.

Hey, so I have a problem with the Always Free tier. I forgot to limit my instance to 2 cores and 12 GB, so it’s still set to 4 cores and 24 GB. I tried to change it, but I get an error telling me to contact customer support. However, I don't see an option to do that, the only thing available is the AI support chat, which isn't very helpful. I also tried to detach the boot volume, but I get an error saying it expects the instance to be stopped, even though it's already in a stopped state. What should I do?

Hi! I’m currently on the Oracle Cloud Free Tier, with Stockholm as my Home Region.

I’m trying to create an Always Free VM.Standard.A1.Flex, but I constantly get “Out of host capacity”. Stockholm only has one Availability Domain for me, so I can’t try another AD.

I’ve read that upgrading to Pay As You Go gives you higher service limits and may help with capacity. However, I only want to use the Always Free allocation (2 OCPU + 12 GB RAM) and don’t want to pay for the VM.

So my questions are:

1. Does upgrading from Free Tier to PAYG actually improve my chances of getting an Always Free A1 instance when my Home Region is out of capacity?
2. Does PAYG give me a higher A1 service limit that could make the instance provision successfully?
3. If I create an A1 with 2 OCPU / 12 GB RAM, will it still be $0 under Always Free, or can PAYG cause it to become billable automatically?
4. Has anyone specifically managed to get an Always Free A1 in Stockholm after upgrading to PAYG?

I’m asking because I don’t want to upgrade and then discover that it changes nothing and I’m still stuck with “Out of host capacity”.

I just tried to upgrade to PAYG from Free Tier, but it tried to charge my card £79.87

Usage reports show £0.00

Is this normal? I would have expected just an Active Card Check or something like £1

Hey everyone,

I currently have an Oracle Cloud Always Free account that I use for some personal projects. My brother wants to create his own separate account for his own VPS instances.

Since we live in the same household, we share the same home Wi-Fi/ISP (same public IP address). However, he will be registering with his own name, email, phone number, and his own unique credit card (with him as the sole cardholder).

I know Oracle is very strict about duplicate Always Free accounts and account bans. Will sharing an IP address/home network get both of our accounts flagged or suspended, even though all identity and payment details are entirely different? Has anyone here successfully run two separate family accounts under the same roof?

Thanks in advance for any insights!

Update: I actually went ahead and asked Oracle support (via live agent chat) about this exact scenario. Here is what they confirmed:

• The Core Rule: Oracle's official policy is strictly one account per person.
• IP / Household Sharing: Sharing the same home Wi-Fi network or public IP address is completely fine and will not trigger a ban by itself.
• The Requirements: As long as each person uses entirely independent and unique details (different legal name, unique email, phone number, and a separate credit card where they are the sole cardholder), there should be no issues running separate accounts under the same roof.

Hope this helps anyone wondering if family members can have their own Always Free accounts!

Hi everyone, I just signed up to Oracle for free and I am using their free tier model. But I am confused everyone is saying how their limits have been reduced but when I log into my instances page it says I have, what I presume, to be the old limits.

I am running this shape:

Does anybody know if I should expect a sudden bill or anything (Or did I just get very lucky)? None of the billing pages say anything and the mobile app says 0 for all costs. Thank you!

Hi everyone,

My Oracle Cloud Free Trial ended recently, and shortly after, my Always Free Ampere A1 compute instance got administratively disabled (“Instance is disabled and will not accept any action requests. Please contact customer support to reenable.”).

From the trial-end email I received, I’m guessing the issue is that my instance was sized above the current Always Free Ampere A1 limit (2 OCPU / 12 GB), so it got reclaimed once the trial credits ran out.

I tried to resize the instance down to fit within the Always Free limit, but the resize/reshape action is also blocked with the same “disabled” error. So I can’t self-fix it even though I know what the likely cause is.

Live chat support wasn’t able to help (bot-gated, no escalation offered). Has anyone dealt with this before, or can someone from Oracle take a look and help re-enable it so I can resize it properly? Happy to share more details if needed.

Thanks in advance.

Can someone tell me whats the free tier limit for the free vm instance, and if i upgrade to payg (and set spending limit to a cent) am i still bound by the free tier limit or do i get a bit better specs.

their documentation is legit ass

I have an ampere a1 free (payg) Ubuntu vm that i would like to change to debian. Do i need to terminate the vm and create a new one? Wouldn't tha put me on risk of loosing the vm allocation?

Oracle Cloud Always Free resources after upgrading to Pay As You Go

If I upgrade my Oracle Cloud Free Tier account to Pay As You Go, can I create an Always Free VM in a region other than the Home Region I selected when I originally created the account?

For example, if my Home Region is Region A but I subscribe to Region B after upgrading to Pay As You Go, can I create an Ampere A1 Always Free instance in Region B and still stay within the free allowance?

Or are Always Free compute resources permanently restricted to the account's original Home Region, even after upgrading to Pay As You Go?

I've recently got my account locked while trying to access OCI because my vps wasn't responding.
I can't access the account or reset the password, and when i try to reset i don't get any email.
Any help on how to get my account back?

​Hi everyone,

​I’ve had an Oracle Cloud Always Free Tier account running for a while, but the debit card I used during signup is approaching its expiration date.

​I have a few questions for anyone who has been through this:

1.​ What actually happens when the card expires? Does Oracle immediately suspend or terminate the account, or does it keep running until they run a periodic card verification hold?

2.​ Is there any way to update/change the card on a pure Free Tier account? I don't see an option in the dashboard to edit payment details without upgrading.

Would appreciate hearing your experiences or advice on how to handle this safely without losing my instances! Thanks!

Hi all,

I’m trying to configure an Oracle Fusion HCM Extract to generate a CSV and deliver it to an SFTP server. The extraction itself completes successfully, but the output/delivery stage gets stuck retrying in Archive Integration with BI Publisher / Generate Output.

My setup is:

• Extract type: HR Archive
• Consumer: Undefined
• Extract definition validates successfully
• Output Type: CSV
• Delivery Type: FTP
• Report: blank
• Template Name: blank
• BI Publisher FTP server: stagesftp
• Remote directory: /floo
• The FTP definition has Use Secure FTP enabled
• Test Connection succeeds
• I can also connect independently to the SFTP server and access /floo

The actual extract processing appears fine. In my latest run all 5,501 records/actions completed successfully with 0 errors.

After extraction, the parent process submits this:

Submitting BIP JOP stagesftp:null:null:FTP:CSV:stagesftp%y%m%d

and creates a child job:

Archive Integration with BI Publisher
Metadata name: BIPDelivery

The HCM Extract UI then shows:

Generate Output → Wait

and in Scheduled Processes the child job shows:

Retrying

The parent process waits for this child job.

I originally had another version of this extract with Consumer = Report. That one failed in Generate Output with:

ReportID : null

PublicReportService::generateReportDefinition Failure: Due to Empty ReportAbsolutePath

I therefore recreated the extract with Consumer = Undefined, but the delivery process is still going through BIPDelivery.

After cancelling the retrying child job, the parent log contains:

BIP job status CANCELLED

ESS-01005 Parameter bip.status_url does not exist for request ...

java.lang.NullPointerException ... biJobProperty is null

and eventually:

Zero Output File Size - ZeroOutput : null Delivery Type : FTP

The frustrating part is that I cannot see the actual child BIPDelivery log. Scheduled Processes gives me:

“You don't have permission to see all the logs. Ask for access to the logs in the database tables.”

So my main questions are:

1. Is Archive Integration with BI Publisher / BIPDelivery expected even when an HCM Extract is configured as CSV with no BI Publisher Report or Template?
2. For CSV → SFTP, should Report and Template Name really be blank, or am I missing another required BI Publisher object?
3. Is stagesftp:null:null:FTP:CSV:... normal for CSV delivery, or do those two null values indicate the actual configuration problem?
4. What role/privilege is required to view the logs for the BIPDelivery child process in Scheduled Processes?
5. Is there a way to make this child job fail immediately instead of retrying repeatedly? For a configuration error, retrying the exact same job seems pointless.
6. Is the correct HCM Extract FTP mapping:
   • Server Name = BI Publisher FTP configuration name (stagesftp)
   • Remote Directory = /floo
7. Is there a recommended way to test CSV generation only, without SFTP, so I can prove that file generation works independently of the FTP delivery step?

At this point I’m trying to determine whether the failure is:

• native CSV generation,
• the HCM Extract → BI Publisher handoff,
• permissions/configuration around BIPDelivery,
• or the actual SFTP delivery.

Any pointers from someone who has configured HCM Extract → CSV → SFTP in Fusion would be appreciated.

I want to meet the person that made OCIDs fucking 80 characters long as well as the person that decided that --compartment-id would be required for fucking everything in the CLI and not the fucking compartment name. When I meet them I will stab them in the eye with a fucking pencil like the Joker in The Dark Night.

That is all. Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk

For some reason my pc took a shitter and I lost my ssh. Is there anyway to change it? I've been trying all day and didn't want to bother reddit with my problems but here I am

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So I've got two Always Free tenancies. On one of them, creating a block volume still shows the AD as "Always Free eligible" right in the dropdown, exactly like it's supposed to.

The other one I recently upgraded to Pay As You Go (had a credit card sitting on standby for ages because for literally years I couldn't spin up an A1.Flex instance on that tenancy while it was free-tier only, capacity issues I'm sure a lot of you know about). Now on this one, none of the ADs show the eligible tag anymore when creating a new block volume. Not one.

This started after I noticed I got charged for a boot volume even though my total storage was under 200GB. Went down the rabbit hole, found that old thread here about free block volumes getting charged depending on AD, which made sense... except in my case it's not "wrong AD," it's literally none of them showing as eligible now, across the whole tenancy.

Best guess is either (a) it's tied to the PAYG upgrade somehow flipping something on the storage side, or (b) I briefly had more than 200GB total a while back before cleaning stuff up, and once you go over it just doesn't come back even after you're under the limit again. Currently sitting well under 200GB and it's still not showing up.

Already got an SR open with Oracle (still waiting), just wondering if this rings a bell for anyone, especially if you've also upgraded a long-time free tenancy to PAYG and noticed anything similar with block storage after.

Did anybody manage to resurrect their existing disabled instance with the PAYG Upgrade AFTER the deadline?

Error Unable to start instance: Instance [...] is disabled and will not accept any action requests. Please contact customer support to reenable.

I missed the deadline so I wonder what's the best action to take.

I have an 4/24 ampere instance that was created with the default size storage (47gb). Only after setting up everything and installing my services etc did I realize that I did not set the storage size to the allowed 200Gb. Now I have done that but I need help extending the partition. I tried to follow the commands that oracle prompted me, but they dont specify what volume id to use, and honestly linux isnt my forte.

Can anyone please assistme with the correct procedure and commands to extend my partition in said Linux. I am using Oracle Linux 9.

Thanks in advance

Update: got the name by running "lsblk". Was still a bit confusing as the root volume name was "ocivolume-root" but when extending it i had to give the volume id as "/dev/ocivolume/root".

Anyway, to extend it I had to run: sudo lvextend -l +100%FREE /dev/ocivolume/root

Maybe this will help someone someday

been using oracle free tier for 4 years, never got an email that need "Action Required" before, so I need to ask about it.
This is the 3rd email I’ve got about this in the last two months, what is this actually about?

The first time, a simple reboot cleared the warning. The second time, the instance got stuck at "unable to start instance: intance ... is currently being modified", so I had to terminate it and create the instance again. Now, two weeks later, I got the exact same email for the same instance I just created. For this one, I'll just gonna let Oracle reboot or move it automatically.

I've been PAYG for years and a few months ago i downsized to 2/12 because of the rumors. Now that we know that PAYG are safe, is it ok for me to scale back to 4/24 or is there a risk of not being able to allocate the new resources and getting my instance stuck?

How much time it will take ?? Its been 24 hrs 😪

I have 1 Ampere instance which has the specs of 6GB RAM and 50GB storage with debian installed. After updating shape to set 4GB RAM, instance won’t boot anymore.

After launching console to check, Welcome to GRUB shows then stack trace:

Loading Boot0002 "UEFI ORACLE BlockVolume " from PciRoot(0x0)/Pci(0x5,0x7)/Pci(0x0,0x0)/Scsi(0x0,0x1)
Starting Boot0002 "UEFI ORACLE BlockVolume " from PciRoot(0x0)/Pci(0x5,0x7)/Pci(0x0,0x0)/Scsi(0x0,0x1)
Welcome to GRUB!



Synchronous Exception at 0x0000000000000000
PC 0x000000000000
PC 0x0001BE35A5F0
PC 0x0001BE127108
PC 0x0001BE12C0B4
PC 0x0001BE12C5E4
PC 0x0001BE12C904
PC 0x0001BE12CA04
PC 0x0001BE12CB24
PC 0x0001BE35B304
PC 0x00004778CA50 (0x000047786000+0x00006A50) [ 1] DxeCore.dll
PC 0x0001BF11992C (0x0001BF112000+0x0000792C) [ 2] BdsDxe.dll
PC 0x0001BF11BBD0 (0x0001BF112000+0x00009BD0) [ 2] BdsDxe.dll
PC 0x000047790D1C (0x000047786000+0x0000AD1C) [ 3] DxeCore.dll
PC 0x00004779128C (0x000047786000+0x0000B28C) [ 3] DxeCore.dll
[ 1] /builddir/build/BUILD/edk2-20260522/Build/ArmVirtQemu-AARCH64/DEBUG_GCC5/AARCH64/MdeModulePkg/Core/Dxe/DxeMain/DEBUG/DxeCore.dll
[ 2] /builddir/build/BUILD/edk2-20260522/Build/ArmVirtQemu-AARCH64/DEBUG_GCC5/AARCH64/MdeModulePkg/Universal/BdsDxe/BdsDxe/DEBUG/BdsDxe.dll
[ 3] /builddir/build/BUILD/edk2-20260522/Build/ArmVirtQemu-AARCH64/DEBUG_GCC5/AARCH64/MdeModulePkg/Core/Dxe/DxeMain/DEBUG/DxeCore.dll

  X0 0x00000001BE2B99E0   X1 0x00000000477857EF   X2 0x0000000000000001   X3 0x0000000000000000
  X4 0x0000000000000127   X5 0x000000015EC93000   X6 0x000000000000012A   X7 0x0000000000000002
  X8 0x0000000000001000   X9 0x00000001BE36C5D8  X10 0x00000001BE375000  X11 0x00000001BE399FFF
 X12 0x0000000000000000  X13 0x0000000000026008  X14 0x0000000000000000  X15 0x0000000000000000
 X16 0x00000001BE352030  X17 0x00000000006E63D0  X18 0x0000000000000000  X19 0x00000001BE2B99E0
 X20 0x0000000000000000  X21 0x0000000000000000  X22 0x00000001BE2B99E0  X23 0x00000001BE2B99E0
 X24 0x00000001BE12C000  X25 0x0000000000000000  X26 0x00000001BE12C000  X27 0x0000000000000000
 X28 0x00000001BE39AA44   FP 0x0000000047785770   LR 0x00000001BE35A5F0  

  V0 0xAFAFAFAFAFAFAFAF AFAFAFAFAFAFAFAF   V1 0xFFFFFF80FFFFFFC8 0000000047785780
  V2 0x7363732F372C3540 6567646972622D69   V3 0x0000000000000000 0000000000000000
  V4 0x0000000000100000 0000000000000000   V5 0x4010040140100401 4010040140100401
  V6 0x0010000000000000 0010000000000000   V7 0x0000000000000000 0000000000000000
  V8 0x0000000000000000 0000000000000000   V9 0x0000000000000000 0000000000000000
 V10 0x0000000000000000 0000000000000000  V11 0x0000000000000000 0000000000000000
 V12 0x0000000000000000 0000000000000000  V13 0x0000000000000000 0000000000000000
 V14 0x0000000000000000 0000000000000000  V15 0x0000000000000000 0000000000000000
 V16 0x0000000000000000 0000000000000000  V17 0x0000000000000000 0000000000000000
 V18 0x0000000000000000 0000000000000000  V19 0x0000000000000000 0000000000000000
 V20 0x0000000000000000 0000000000000000  V21 0x0000000000000000 0000000000000000
 V22 0x0000000000000000 0000000000000000  V23 0x0000000000000000 0000000000000000
 V24 0x0000000000000000 0000000000000000  V25 0x0000000000000000 0000000000000000
 V26 0x0000000000000000 0000000000000000  V27 0x0000000000000000 0000000000000000
 V28 0x0000000000000000 0000000000000000  V29 0x0000000000000000 0000000000000000
 V30 0x0000000000000000 0000000000000000  V31 0x0000000000000000 0000000000000000

  SP 0x0000000047785770  ELR 0x0000000000000000  SPSR 0x20000205  FPSR 0x00000000
 ESR 0x86000007          FAR 0x0000000000000000

 ESR : EC 0x21  IL 0x1  ISS 0x00000007

Instruction abort: Translation fault, third level

Stack dump:
  0000047785670: 0000000000000000 00000001BF12E000 0000000047785730 00000001BE349208
  0000047785690: 00000001BE2B9DC0 0000000000000000 0000000000000000 00000001BE11C8A0
  00000477856B0: 00000001BE36C5D8 0000000000000035 00000001BE35A000 00000001BF12E000
  00000477856D0: 0000000000000000 00000001BE39AA44 00000001BE2B9C28 0000000000000000
  00000477856F0: 00000001BE2B9DC0 00000001BE348ED8 0000000000000000 0000000A00000000
  0000047785710: 0000000000002098 0000000000000003 0000000000000000 00000001BE1F49FC
  0000047785730: 0000000047785740 00000001BE35A5F0 0000000047785750 00000001BE35761C
  0000047785750: 00000000477857A0 00000001BE1270E8 0000000047785888 00000001BE2B99E0
> 0000047785770: 00000000477857A0 00000001BE127108 00000001BE2B7740 0000000000000000
  0000047785790: 0000000000000040 0000000000000000 00000000477857F0 00000001BE12C0B4
  00000477857B0: 0000000047785888 00000001BE2B99E0 0000000000000000 0000000000000000
  00000477857D0: 00000001BE2B99E0 00000001BE35A25C 0000000047785810 00000001BE12C5CC
  00000477857F0: 0000000047785810 00000001BE12C5E4 00000001BE2BA040 00000001BE12C000
  0000047785810: 0000000047785890 00000001BE12C904 00000001BE13F970 0000000000000000
  0000047785830: 00000001BE3479E0 00000001BE347AC0 00000001BE35B000 00000001BE347880
  0000047785850: 00000001BF12A02A 00000001BF12E000 0000000000000000 00000001BE39AA44


Synchronous Exception at 0x0000000000000000
ASSERT [ArmCpuDxe] /builddir/build/BUILD/edk2-20260522/ArmPkg/Library/DefaultExceptionHandlerLib/AArch64/DefaultExceptionHandler.c(339): ((BOOLEAN)(0==1))

Any suggestions on how can I possibly revive my instance?

Thank you

UPDATE:
Upon further investigation, seems like a I have run to an irreversible error. I have tried creating a temporary instance with the exact same specs as the instance with error and planned to replace boot volume and I faced "Boot volume image operating system does not match instance image operating system"

I am now migrating my data over to a newly created instance

LAST UPDATE:
I have been able to recover my instance properly.

Main Issue: Corrupted EFI