{"id":43395,"date":"2026-03-16T09:09:00","date_gmt":"2026-03-16T08:09:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.dbi-services.com\/blog\/?p=43395"},"modified":"2026-03-13T17:17:38","modified_gmt":"2026-03-13T16:17:38","slug":"ogg-12020-payload-error-in-goldengate-migration-utility","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dbi-services.com\/blog\/ogg-12020-payload-error-in-goldengate-migration-utility\/","title":{"rendered":"OGG-12020 Payload Error in GoldenGate Migration Utility"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>While migrating a GoldenGate classic architecture setup with the <a href=\"https:\/\/docs.oracle.com\/en\/database\/goldengate\/core\/26\/coredoc\/migration-utility-migrate-classic-ma.html#GUID-D2515415-01D0-43CB-A439-F13BC9D36D58\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">migration utility<\/a>, I recently had the following <code>OGG-12020<\/code> error:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<pre class=\"wp-block-code\"><code>&#091;ERROR] OGG-12020 - The request payload for &amp;#x27;POST \/services\/v2\/config\/files\/ext.prm&amp;#x27; is not defined as an object<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\n<p>It is a very cryptic error at first glance, but let&#8217;s try to understand what happened.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-where-does-the-error-come-from\">Where does the error come from ?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>The first step is to understand what is causing the issue. For this, you need to understand how the GoldenGate migration utility works.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When migrating extracts (or any other GoldenGate object), GoldenGate will make <strong>API calls<\/strong> to the new microservices architecture administration service to register the extracts. The <code>OGG-12020<\/code> error is just the API telling you that the <code>POST<\/code> call is invalid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Let&#8217;s use the API log reader from a previous <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dbi-services.com\/blog\/querying-goldengate-rest-api-log-efficiently\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">blog post<\/a> to ease the analysis. You can also just read through the <code>restapi.log<\/code> of your target deployment, but it will be harder to read.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<pre class=\"wp-block-code\"><code>python3 restapi_to_ndjson.py $OGG_DEPLOYMENT_HOME\/var\/log restapi.ndjson<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\n<p>Using <code>jq<\/code>, we filter the failed <code>POST<\/code> calls against the URI given in the migration logs (<code>\/services\/v2\/config\/files\/ext.prm<\/code>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<pre class=\"wp-block-code\"><code>&gt; jq -c 'select (.request.context.verb == \"POST\" and .request.context.uri == \"\/services\/v2\/config\/files\/ext.prm\" and .restapi_status == \"ERROR\")' restapi.ndjson\n{\"request\":{\"context\":{\"httpContextKey\":140077954104240,\"verbId\":4,\"verb\":\"POST\",\"originalVerb\":\"POST\",\"uri\":\"\/services\/v2\/config\/files\/ext.prm\",\"protocol\":\"https\",\"headers\":{\"Authorization\":\"** Masked **\",\"Content-type\":\"application\/json\",\"User-Agent\":\"Java\/1.8.0_482\",\"Host\":\"oggma:port\",\"Accept\":\"text\/html, image\/gif, image\/jpeg, *; q=.2, *\/*; q=.2\",\"Connection\":\"keep-alive\",\"Content-Length\":\"12417\", \"Content-Type\":null,\"X-OGG-Requestor-Id\":\"\",\"X-OGG-Feature-List\":\"\"},\"host\":\"oggma:port\",\"securityEnabled\":true,\"authorization\":{\"authUserName\":\"ogg_user\",\"authPassword\":\"** Masked **\", \"authMode\":\"Basic\",\"authUserRole\":\"Security\"},\"requestId\":5,\"uriTemplate\":\"\/services\/{version}\/config\/files\/{file}\"},\"content\":null,\"isScaRequest\":true,\"parameters\":{\"uri\":{\"file\":\"ext.prm\",\"version\":\"v2\"}}},\"response\":{\"context\":{\"httpContextKey\":140077954104240,\"requestId\":5,\"code\":\"400 Bad Request\",\"headers\":{\"Content-Type\":\"application\/json\",\"Strict-Transport-Security\":\"max-age=31536000;includeSubDomains\",\"Set-Cookie\":\"** Masked **\"},\"Content-Type\":\"application\/json\",\"contentType\":\"text\/html\"},\"isScaResponse\":true,\"content\":{\"$schema\":\"api:standardResponse\",\"links\":&#091;{\"rel\":\"canonical\",\"href\":\"https:\/\/oggma:port\/services\/v2\/config\/files\/ext.prm\",\"mediaType\":\"text\/html\"},{\"rel\":\"self\",\"href\":\"https:\/\/oggma:port\/services\/v2\/config\/files\/ext.prm\",\"mediaType\":\"text\/html\"}],\"messages\":&#091;{\"$schema\":\"ogg:message\",\"title\":\"The request payload for 'POST \/services\/v2\/config\/files\/ext.prm' is not defined as an object.\",\"code\":\"OGG-12020\",\"severity\":\"ERROR\",\"issued\":\"2026-03-05T09:55:24Z\",\"type\":\"https:\/\/docs.oracle.com\/en\/middleware\/goldengate\/core\/23.26\/error-messages\/\"}]}},\"restapi_datetime\":\"2026-03-05 10:55:24.448+0100\",\"restapi_epoch\":1772704524,\"restapi_status\":\"ERROR\",\"restapi_service\":\"adminsrvr\",\"restapi_reqno\":18}<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\n<p>You might not see the root cause at first, but if we only retrieve the <code>content<\/code> object:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<pre class=\"wp-block-code\"><code>&gt; jq -c 'select (.request.context.verb == \"POST\" and .request.context.uri == \"\/services\/v2\/config\/files\/ext.prm\" and .restapi_status == \"ERROR\") | {content:.request.content, message:.response.content.messages&#091;0].title}' restapi.ndjson\n{\"content\":null,\"message\":\"The request payload for 'POST \/services\/v2\/config\/files\/ext.prm' is not defined as an object.\"}<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\n<p>The migration utility is sending a request to the API with a <code>null<\/code> content, which obviously fails. Normally, the <code>content<\/code> key should contain a <strong>list with all the lines<\/strong> from the parameter file.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-how-to-solve-this-issue\">How to solve this issue ?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Unfortunately, there is <strong>no easy solution here<\/strong>. But here are the steps I took to solve the issue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>First, you should make sure that the <code>dryrun<\/code> of the migration utility did not highlight any error in the formatting of the file.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Then, make sure you are using the <strong>latest version of the migration utility<\/strong>.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>If it still doesn&#8217;t work, you unfortunately found a bug in the migration utility, and there is little you can do.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>However, you can still use the tool to migrate. In my case, I managed to pinpoint the error to this line of the extract parameter file:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<pre class=\"wp-block-code\"><code>TOKENS (\n    &#091;...]\n    TK_COL = &#091;...] @STRSUB(column_name, '|', '\\|', '\\', '\\\\') &#091;...]\n);<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\n<p>The migration utility seems to have poor handling of these escape characters and does not fail properly. It should either fail before attempting the API call or send proper <code>content<\/code> to the API.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you are sure that the incriminated syntax is valid in your target GoldenGate version, migrate with the following steps:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Remove the incriminated syntax<\/strong> from the file. In my case, it meant removing the <code>STRSUB<\/code> section of the file.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Migrate<\/strong> with the temporary parameter file<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Modify the parameter file<\/strong> in the target GoldenGate deployment, undoing the changes.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>If you have a lot of extracts and replicats that need to be migrated, using this temporary file trick might be your best chance to secure your GoldenGate migration.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>While migrating a GoldenGate classic architecture setup with the migration utility, I recently had the following OGG-12020 error: It is a very cryptic error at first glance, but let&#8217;s try to understand what happened. Where does the error come from ? The first step is to understand what is causing the issue. For this, you [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":152,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3787,59],"tags":[3827,3804,979,1545,328,2562,3730,3907,3910,1520,3905],"type_dbi":[3828,3823,3801,2954,3740,3786,3881,3908,3911,3909,3906],"class_list":{"0":"post-43395","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"hentry","6":"category-goldengate","7":"category-oracle","8":"tag-3827","9":"tag-26ai","10":"tag-api","11":"tag-error","12":"tag-goldengate","13":"tag-migration-2","14":"tag-ogg","15":"tag-ogg-12020","16":"tag-payload","17":"tag-post","18":"tag-strsub","19":"type-3828","20":"type-26ai","21":"type-api","22":"type-error","23":"type-goldengate","24":"type-migration","25":"type-ogg","26":"type-ogg-12020","27":"type-payload","29":"type-strsub"},"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v27.2 (Yoast SEO v27.2) - 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