I ran into this error while deploying OEM 12c agent to a remote AIX 6.1 server running Oracle DB 11.2.0.2.0.
The following error came up:
OUI-10022:The target area $ORACLE_BASE/oraInventory cannot be used because it is in an invalid state.. This implies my global oracle inventory is corrupt. First I checked to ensure that I have the appropriate permission (755) on the oraInventory direction. This was in place so permissions could not be the issue.
For AIX/UNIX, the OraInventory can be located by checking /etc/oraInst.loc. Having located the file, the contents looked like this:
inventory_loc=<location_for_oraInventory>
inst_group=<name_of_group_for_installtion>
I navigated to the inventory location and renamed the existing oraInventory directory.
mv oraInventory oraInventory_orig
Next, I navigated to $ORACLE_HOME/oui/bin where I ran OUI as follows:
./runInstaller -silent -ignoreSysPrereqs -attachHome ORACLE_HOME="oracle_home_directory" ORACLE_HOME_NAME="OraDB11g_home1"
Verify the newly created oraInventory using:
$ORACLE_HOME/OPatch/opatch lsinventory -detail
