ORA-06512: at "SYS.UTL_FILE", line 140

During a patch run following errors were reported in adworker log:

sqlplus -s APPS/***** @/apps11i/erp/appl/xtr/11.5.0/patch/115/sql/xtr3904621.sql
DECLARE
*
ERROR at line 1:
ORA-29282: invalid file ID
ORA-06512: at "SYS.UTL_FILE", line 140
ORA-06512: at "SYS.UTL_FILE", line 785
ORA-06512: at line 158
ORA-29285: file write error

The initialization parameter utl_file_dir had only one directory $COMMON_TOP/temp. The DBAs changed this to /usr/tmp and bounced the database. After which they resumed patch. Still the error came. We tried running the xtr3904621.sql manually :

sqlplus /nolog
connect apps/apps
@/apps11i/erp/appl/xtr/11.5.0/patch/115/sql/xtr3904621.sql

We go the very same error.

I logged in as oracle user
cd /usr/tmp
touch abc.txt
vi abc.txt
Test file
:wq
file was created and edited without issues

Strangely after two minutes when I ran the same sql connected as oracle user from 10.2.0 ORACLE_HOME, it worked without issues. When I ran connected from 806 home as applmgr user, it ran. When we restarted the worker, it succeeded.

I still don't understand why it did not work, when we tried immediately after bouncing database. Is there a delay mechanism somewhere ? No answers on this question yet.