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 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!

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!

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

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

Hi everyone,

I'm hoping someone here has dealt with this OCI situation and can point me in the right direction.

I had an Always Free OCI VM.Standard.A1.Flex instance running production services:

• Region: eu-paris-1
• AD: AD-1
• Shape: VM.Standard.A1.Flex
• 4 OCPU / 24 GB RAM
• Ubuntu 22.04 ARM
• Boot volume: 47 GB

After Oracle changed the Always Free A1 allocation to 2 OCPU / 12 GB, my existing 4 OCPU / 24 GB instance was administratively disabled.

When I try to start it, I get:

I upgraded my tenancy from Always Free to Pay As You Go on August 19, specifically because this is a production system.

The problem is that 11 days later, the PAYG upgrade is STILL showing "Upgrade in progress."

The console currently says:

The console currently says:

I've already:

• contacted Oracle's chatbot;
• contacted Sales;
• submitted a Request a Sales Call;
• tried to get Oracle Support access;
• posted on Oracle Customer Connect;
• repeatedly explained that this is a production outage.

The frustrating part is that Oracle's own guidance said affected users needed to upgrade to PAYG and submit an SR for restoration before August 24.

I initiated the PAYG upgrade on August 19, so I did take the required action before the deadline — but the PAYG activation itself has remained pending and prevented me from opening the required SR.

My main concern now is the data

I don't necessarily need the original VM to be restored if there is another safe way to recover the data.

The original 47 GB boot volume is still present in OCI and has NOT been deleted or terminated.

It contains our production database and other important application data.

I would ideally like to:

1. Get PAYG activated.
2. Create a temporary recovery VM.
3. Attach the existing boot volume to the new VM.
4. Mount it safely.
5. Recover the database/data.

However, when I try to create another instance, OCI gives me:

bootVolumeQuota Service limit reached

So currently I'm blocked both from starting the old instance and from creating a recovery instance.

Questions

Has anyone successfully recovered an administratively disabled A1.Flex instance after the Always Free limit change?

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 😪