I faced with that error message while I was trying to apply 10.2.0.4 patch on AIX 6.1

Here is the my steps:

1. Error  Message:

[oracle@test]</u01/app/oracle/product/10.2.0/OPatch>opatch lsinventory

Invoking OPatch 10.2.0.3.0

Oracle interim Patch Installer version 10.2.0.3.0
Copyright (c) 2005, Oracle Corporation. All rights reserved..
Oracle Home : /u01/app/oracle/product/10.2.0
Central Inventory : /u01/app/oracle/oraInventory
from : /etc/oraInst.loc
OPatch version : 10.2.0.3.0
OUI version : 10.2.0.3.0
OUI location : /u01/app/oracle/product/10.2.0/oui
Log file location : /u01/app/oracle/product/10.2.0/cfgtoollogs/opatch/opatch2013-09-17_10-42-49AM.log

List of Homes on this system:

Inventory load failed… OPatch cannot load inventory for the given Oracle Home.
Possible causes are:
Oracle Home dir. path does not exist in Central Inventory
Oracle Home is a symbolic link
Oracle Home inventory is corrupted
LsInventorySession failed: OracleHomeInventory::load() gets null oracleHomeInfo

OPatch failed with error code 73

2. Lets check log file

[oracle@test]tail -100f /u01/app/oracle/product/10.2.0/cfgtoollogs/opatch/opatch2013-09-17_10-42-49AM.log
SEVERE:OPatch invoked as follows: ‘lsinventory ‘
INFO:
Oracle Home : /u01/app/oracle/product/10.2.0
Central Inventory : /u01/app/oracle/oraInventory
from : /etc/oraInst.loc
OPatch version : 10.2.0.3.0
OUI version : 10.2.0.3.0
OUI location : /u01/app/oracle/product/10.2.0/oui
Log file location : /u01/app/oracle/product/10.2.0/cfgtoollogs/opatch/opatch2013-09-17_10-42-49AM.log

INFO:Starting LsInventorySession at Tue Sep 17 10:42:49 GMT+02:00 2013
INFO:List of Homes on this system:

SEVERE:OUI-67028:Inventory load failed… OPatch cannot load inventory for the given Oracle Home.
Possible causes are:
Oracle Home dir. path does not exist in Central Inventory
Oracle Home is a symbolic link
Oracle Home inventory is corrupted
SEVERE:OUI-67073:LsInventorySession failed: OracleHomeInventory::load() gets null oracleHomeInfo
INFO:Finishing LsInventorySession at Tue Sep 17 10:42:49 GMT+02:00 2013
INFO:Stack Description: java.lang.RuntimeException: OracleHomeInventory::load() gets null oracleHomeInfo
INFO:StackTrace: oracle.opatch.OracleHomeInventory.load(OracleHomeInventory.java:2296)
INFO:StackTrace: oracle.opatch.LsInventorySession.loadAndPrintInventory(LsInventorySession.java:358)
INFO:StackTrace: oracle.opatch.LsInventorySession.process(LsInventorySession.java:312)
INFO:StackTrace: oracle.opatch.OPatchSession.main(OPatchSession.java:1060)
INFO:StackTrace: oracle.opatch.OPatch.main(OPatch.java:516)

3. As you can see my oraInst.loc has been corrupted, so I need to recreate it. You can use note :Steps To Recreate Central Inventory(oraInventory) In RDBMS Homes (Doc ID 556834.1)

First mv oraInventory folder as oraInventory_orig than

You can use below syntax

./runInstaller -silent -ignoreSysPrereqs -attachHome ORACLE_HOME=”/u01/app/oracle/product/10.2.0″ ORACLE_HOME_NAME=”TEST”

or can use

or you can use attachHome.sh which is under $ORACLE_HOME/oui/bin  path

While I am running both command I got below message:

No pre-requisite checks found in oraparam.ini, no system pre-requisite checks will be executed.
The inventory pointer is located at /etc/oraInst.loc
The inventory is located at /u01/app/oracle/oraInventory
‘AttachHome’ was failed.

We have to check log file which is under oraInventory  folder, log shows:

INFO: Setting variable ‘INVENTORY_LOCATION’ to ‘/u01/app/oracle/oraInventory’. Received the value from a code block.
INFO: Created OiicStandardInventorySession.
INFO: Unable to read /oracle10g/app/oracle/oraInventory/ContentsXML/comps.xml. Some inventory information may be lost.
SEVERE: oracle.sysman.oii.oiii.OiiiMissingDependeeException: OUI-10209:Cannot find dependee “oracle.swd.jre 1.1.8.3.0” of component “Oracle Java Client 10.2.0.1.0 ” in home “0”.
at oracle.sysman.oii.oiii.OiiiInstallInventory.updateCompDependencies(OiiiInstallInventory.java:3848)
at oracle.sysman.oii.oiii.OiiiInstallInventory.attachHomeEx(OiiiInstallInventory.java:3578)
at oracle.sysman.oii.oiic.OiicAttachHome.getOracleHomeInfo(OiicAttachHome.java:164)
at oracle.sysman.oii.oiic.OiicAttachHome.doOperation(OiicAttachHome.java:216)
at oracle.sysman.oii.oiic.OiicBaseInventoryApp.main_helper(OiicBaseInventoryApp.java:767)
at oracle.sysman.oii.oiic.OiicAttachHome.main(OiicAttachHome.java:414)

INFO: ‘AttachHome’ failed.

4. So solution avaliable at note: OUI-10209:Cannot find dependee’ When try to attachHome (Doc ID 1273158.1)

cp $ORACLE_HOME/inventory/ContentsXML/comps.xml $ORACLE_HOME/inventory/ContentsXML/comps.xml_orig

Modify the $ORACLE_HOME/inventory/ContentsXML/comps.xml file so that there are no references to HOME_IDX=”0″  which mean make search at xml file as  HOME_IDX=”0″ and remove those lines

5. Try to attachHome again