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After you install APEX or upgrade a base APEX, you need to create workspaces. These instructions show you how to create a workspace in APEX 18. You have two options, you can use the base url while specifying the INTERNAL workspace.

1. You start the process by accessing the Oracle APEX through the standard form by entering the following URL:
   

   
   http://localhost:8080/apex
   

   • Workspace: INTERNAL
   • Username:  ADMIN
   • Password:  installation_system_password

2. The better approach is to use the APEX administrator login:
   

   
   http://localhost:8080/apex/apex_admin
   

   • Username:  ADMIN
   • Password:  installation_system_password

3. After logging into the Oracle Application Express (APEX) Administration console, you see the Administration home page.

4. You click the Create Workspace button to start creating a work space.

5. You enter a workspace name, ID number (greater than 100,000), and description and click the Next button to move to the next step.

6. You choose whether to reuse an existing schema, which gives you more control. You then choose a schema from the list of available schemas. You do not use a password or schema size when you reuse a schema. You enter a password that has a capital letter, number, and special character that is not a % when you do not reuse a schema. You also need to choose a size. The default value is 100 megabytes. Click the Next button to move to the next step.

7. This dialog identifies the workspace administrator. Click the Next button to move to the next step.

8. This dialog confirms what you have done in the workflow. Click the Next button to move to the next step.

1. This dialog tells you that you have successfully provisioned a workspace. Click the Done button to complete the workflow.

As always, I hope this helps those trying to figure out how to do something that should not be and is not actually hard to do.

While preparing my new instance for class, which uses Oracle 11g XE and Fedora 27, I got caught by the Oracle instructions. I should have got caught but when you’re in a hurry sometimes you don’t slow down enough to read it properly. Actually, for me it was the uppercase APEX_HOME that threw me for a moment. It looks too much like an environment variable. Step 5 of the upgrading instructions says:

5. Log back into SQL*Plus (as above) and configure the Embedded PL/SQL Gateway (EPG):

   SQL> @apex_epg_config.SQL APEX_HOME

   SQL> @apex_epg_config.sql APEX_HOME

   [Note: APEX_HOME is the directory you specified when unzipping the file. For example, with Windows 'C:\'.]

Like an idiot, I typed it in literally without reading the note. That gave me this beautifully non-constructive error message:

DECLARE
*
ERROR AT line 1:
ORA-22288: FILE OR LOB operation FILEOPEN failed
No such FILE OR DIRECTORY
ORA-06512: AT "SYS.XMLTYPE", line 296
ORA-06512: AT line 16

I tried to launch APEX for a more meaningful error message, and it displayed:

Then, I used Google to find a few very old and not very helpful solutions because I wasn’t slowing down to read them. However, clearly if there are only old solutions the problem must be what I typed. I checked my old APEX 4 to APEX 5 blog post and then I understood the APEX_HOME. The documentation should really use APEX_UPGRADE_UNZIP_PATH to avoid having to read the detailed note.

After changing the generic APEX_PATH parameter to the physical directory directory where I stored the unzipped file content /u01/app/oracle/apex, like this:

SQL> @apex_epg_config.SQL /u01/app/oracle/apex

and, it worked as designed.

It important to note that the APEX upgrade works perfectly. Outstanding work by a well motivated and thorough development team. I can only quibble with making Step 5 simpler. As always, I hope this helps others.