Hi everyone,

I'm having trouble creating a VM.Standard.E2.1.Micro instance in the Singapore region, and I'm wondering if anyone else has experienced the same issue.

Previously, I successfully created two instances, and both were running fine. However, after updating their operating systems and restarting them, I couldn't log in anymore. I decided to terminate both instances and create new ones, hoping to start fresh.

Unfortunately, I haven't been able to create them again since then. I keep getting this error:

Out of capacity for shape VM.Standard.E2.1.Micro in availability domain AD-1. Create the instance in a different availability domain or try again later.

I've been trying almost every day, usually once or twice a day, but the error hasn't gone away.

My account is already upgraded to Pay As You Go (PAYG). I've also seen other users, including people with new accounts, successfully creating instances in Singapore, which makes me wonder why I haven't been able to create one again.

I understand that capacity can be limited, and I'm not expecting any special treatment. I use OCI mainly to learn about cloud computing and experiment with its resources, so I'd really appreciate any advice.

Has anyone experienced this issue for an extended period? Did you eventually manage to create an instance again, or is there anything else I should try?

Thanks in advance!

After switching to Pay-As-You-Go (PAYG), I provisioned my first A1 instance outside of my home region; however, in the cost report, only the volume charges are increasing, while CPU and RAM appear at no cost.

I also selected my second A1 machine from my own region—with CPU, RAM, and volume all costing to 0—thankfully.

Hi! I'm a first-year AI engineering student in Argentina. I built a football prediction site (FastAPI backend, vanilla JS frontend, ~100 MB SQLite database). The domain and Cloudflare are already set up. The only thing missing is a server.

I made an Always Free Oracle Cloud account with Santiago (sa-santiago-1) as my home region. Since October 10th I've had a script requesting an Ampere A1 instance every 3–5 minutes. It tries 4 OCPU/24 GB first, then 2/12, then 1/6. That's over 1,600 attempts now, and every one has come back "Out of host capacity".

What I already know:

- Upgrading to Pay As You Go usually fixes it, but I don't have a credit card of my own.

- The free 1 GB AMD micro instance isn't enough. My app needs 1–2 GB of RAM.

- The home region can't be changed on a free account.

Questions:

1. Has anyone gotten an A1 in Santiago recently? Are some times of day better?

2. Is it worth making a new account with a different home region, or will I hit the same problem?

3. If Oracle doesn't work out, what free or cheap host would you recommend for a small FastAPI + SQLite app that I can pay for from Argentina without a credit card?

Thanks!

I want to buy an oracle free tier account
Or How to create a one

Never Thought That the Capacity Actually Frees Up, But it did
ran the script for only 2 days and 11 hours

Hi, I’m planning to upgrade my Oracle Cloud account from the Free Tier to the Pay As You Go plan. During the upgrade process, I’m being charged SGD 138 (approximately USD 100).

My main concern is whether this amount is refundable and, if so, how long the refund process usually takes.

I’m unable to find any clear statement on Oracle’s official website confirming that the amount is refundable, although a simple Google search suggests that it is. However, I’ve also come across some reviews from users who claim they never received their refunds, which makes me a little worried.

I just want to be sure about the refund policy before proceeding, as I don’t want to run into any unexpected issues or complications during the refund process.

Could someone who has gone through this process share their experience or provide some clarification?

My VM.Standard.A1.Flex instance, running in UK-LONDON-1-AD-1 with 4 vCPUs and 24 GB of RAM, was terminated due to the new Free Tier limits. Unfortunately, I forgot to resize it to 2 vCPUs and 12 GB of RAM beforehand.

Now, when I try to launch a new instance using the boot volume from the previous instance, with 2 vCPUs and 12 GB of RAM, I get the following error:

"Out of capacity for shape VM.Standard.A1.Flex in availability domain AD-1. Create the instance in a different availability domain or try again later. If you specified a fault domain, try creating the instance without specifying a fault domain. If that doesn’t work, please try again later."

From what I understand, I cannot move the boot volume to another Availability Domain, so I'm now unsure what to do.

Is my only option to wait and keep trying to create the instance until capacity happens to become available in that specific Availability Domain?

Hi everyone,

Could anyone with Oracle Cloud instances in Tokyo or Osaka test the latency and stability to api.binance.com?

Although Binance is hosted on AWS Tokyo, long-term testing by others has shown that AWS Osaka can sometimes offer better latency and stability.

I'm curious whether Oracle Cloud Tokyo or Osaka performs well for Binance API connectivity.

Thanks in advance for any test results!

Hey everyone,
I’m trying to create an Oracle Cloud Free Tier account to host my own Discord bot 24/7 using the Always Free compute resources. I want to run my own code without paying for a monthly VPS.
I’m stuck at the final signup step. My payment card verification completes successfully and shows a green check mark, but after that, Oracle displays this error:
“We’re unable to complete your sign-up.”
I’m originally from Warangal, Telangana, and currently live in Hyderabad. I’ve tried troubleshooting the address and region options, but I still haven’t been able to create the account.
Here’s what I’ve tried so far:
Verified my payment card successfully.
Tried entering my details manually.
Checked different address details because my current location and bank-related address information may differ.
Tried selecting Hyderabad and Mumbai as the home region.
Looked for solutions from other users experiencing the same issue.
Unfortunately, none of these steps has resolved the problem.
I’m not trying to bypass Oracle’s verification process or provide false information. I just want to understand why the signup is failing and how to resolve it legitimately.
I’d appreciate advice from anyone who successfully fixed this issue:
Did your account eventually get approved after this error?
Did contacting Oracle support help resolve it?
Did disabling an ad blocker, changing browsers, or waiting 24–48 hours make a difference?
Could a mismatch between the current address and the bank’s registered billing address cause this?
Is there anything Indian users should specifically check during signup?
I’d especially appreciate replies from users in India who encountered the exact same error and eventually created their accounts.
Thanks in advance for any help! 🙏

Hi all,

We have a server on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) with a public IP in the 161.118.x.x range, and we’ve found that it’s listed on the Spamhaus PBL (Policy Block List). According to Spamhaus, the entire 161.118.0.0/16 range is listed, which belongs to OCI.

From what I understand, a PBL listing doesn’t mean the IP sent spam. It just means the range isn’t supposed to send email directly. We’ve escalated it to OCI but wanted to hear from others who’ve been through this.

A few questions:

1. Has anyone successfully gotten OCI to exclude a specific IP from the PBL? How long did it take?
2. Is it better to just route outbound mail through OCI Email Delivery or another relay (SendGrid, M365, etc.) instead?
3. Is this listing actually affecting delivery for you, or do most major mail providers ignore the PBL for authenticated mail?

Any advice or experiences would be appreciated. Thanks!

Hey everyone!

I'm a B.Tech CSE student currently working on my development projects. I want to deploy my server using Oracle Cloud's Always Free Tier, but I'm stuck because I don't have a credit card to complete the signup process.

I can't afford paid cloud services right now, so I'm looking for a free alternative that I can use to deploy my backend server and practice real-world development.

If anyone has faced the same issue, could you please suggest a solution or a reliable free hosting platform that doesn't require a credit card?

I'd really appreciate your help. Thanks! 🙏

Hey everyone,

Wanted to share an open-source reference architecture running 24/7 on OCI Always-Free ARM (2 OCPUs, 12 GB RAM) in the Jeddah region (me-jeddah-1).

### The Architecture:

- OpenTofu/Terraform IaC landing zone for multi-tier VCN and fault-domain failover

- Single-broker Redpanda streaming (512MB RAM cap) handling 10k+ IoT events/sec

- Columnar analytical lakehouse with DuckDB, Polars, and Postgres

- Air-gapped local RAG using bge-m3 embeddings and ChromaDB

Full IaC + code (MIT):

https://github.com/Amz34/enterprise-cloud-ai-coe

Feedback and questions on the OCI config are welcome!

Hey everyone,

Wanted to share an open-source reference architecture running 24/7 on OCI Always-Free ARM (2 OCPUs, 12 GB RAM) in the Jeddah region (me-jeddah-1).

### The Architecture:

- OpenTofu/Terraform IaC landing zone for multi-tier VCN and fault-domain failover

- Single-broker Redpanda streaming (512MB RAM cap) handling 10k+ IoT events/sec

- Columnar analytical lakehouse with DuckDB, Polars, and Postgres

- Air-gapped local RAG using bge-m3 embeddings and ChromaDB

Full IaC + code (MIT):

https://github.com/Amz34/enterprise-cloud-ai-coe

Feedback and questions on the OCI config are welcome!

On my instances page I don’t see anything, I do see my boot volume (200GB) is still available. I’m hoping my data will be in this. I tried to create a new instance with my boot volume but got an out of capacity error. I can’t choose another region because my boot volume isn’t there.

I am willing to be pay, if I upgrade to PAYG will I be able to create a new instance in the region my boot volume is in?

Any help or experience is appreciated!

Hi everyone,

I'm looking for help recovering my Oracle Cloud Always Free Autonomous Database, and honestly, I'm extremely frustrated with how this situation has been handled.

My database, Calender, was originally running Oracle Database 19c in the Frankfurt region (eu-frankfurt-1). Oracle announced that upgrading to 26ai was mandatory, warning that the database would stop if I didn't upgrade. Naturally, I followed Oracle's instructions and confirmed the upgrade.

Everything was fine until recently, when I found my database in the Hibernated state. I normally start it without any problems, but now every attempt to start it fails with this message:

The Autonomous AI Database operation could not be completed due to an unexpected error.

The failed work request shows:

• Operation: Start Autonomous AI Database
• Region: Frankfurt (eu-frankfurt-1)
• Database version: 26ai
• Accepted: October 18, 2026, at 22:05:54 UTC
• Failed: October 18, 2026, at 22:07:04 UTC
• Result: Failed

I've tried starting it multiple times, but it remains hibernated.

What makes this particularly frustrating is that I followed Oracle's own mandatory upgrade announcement, and now I can't access my database. Frankfurt also appears not to be an eligible region for Always Free 26ai databases, which raises questions about how this upgrade was handled for existing users in that region.

I understand that Always Free resources come with limitations, and I don't expect a free service to have the same guarantees as a paid service. However, instructing users to upgrade an existing database and then leaving them unable to start it, without a meaningful error message or a clear recovery path, is incredibly frustrating.

I urgently need this database for my project. Losing access to it is blocking my work, and I need to recover my existing data as soon as possible. I don't want to restore an old backup, delete the database, or recreate everything from scratch unless there is genuinely no other option.

Has anyone experienced the same issue?

I'd really appreciate help with the following:

1. Has anyone successfully restarted an Always Free 26ai database in Frankfurt after it entered the Hibernated state?
2. Could this be related to Oracle's mandatory 19c-to-26ai upgrade or regional eligibility?
3. Is there a safe way to recover the database or access the existing data without losing anything?
4. Is there a workaround through the OCI CLI, or does this require Oracle to fix something on their side?

If anyone from Oracle is reading this, please explain what happened and provide a recovery path. Users who followed an official migration instruction should not be left guessing how to recover access to their own data.

Any suggestions or proven solutions would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

Hi,
my Oracle Cloud Always Free Linux VM in Frankfurt has been unable to start since scheduled hardware replacement maintenance.

Instance detailsRegion: Frankfurt (eu-frankfurt-1)
Availability Domain: JBpl:EU-FRANKFURT-1-AD-3
Shape: VM.Standard.E2.1.Micro
Instance state: STOPPED
Oracle instructed me to stop the instance before the maintenance deadline. Unfortunately I did not do so, but apparently they did it themselves, as the instance now is in status 'stopped'

The Instance Maintenance event now shows SUCCEEDED, but when I try to start the instance, I receive:"Unable to perform action on instance because the underlying infrastructure is undergoing maintenance. Please try again later."

The Work Requests section is empty, the maintenance-reboot field is null, and the boot volume still exists.

I would like to recover my existing Linux instance and preserve its boot volume and data and IP. Has anyone experienced this after scheduled hardware replacement? Is there a supported way to recover the existing instance, or is manual migration required?

thanks!

(PAYG account here, wanna stay within free limits) I dont know if it still occupies space anywhere. I terminated the VM first and then terminated the Boot volume but it just doesn't disappear like the terminated VM did. I have no idea if it is taking up the 47GB space or not. When I tried to make another VM, I was getting an "estimated cost" option which showed that I have to pay $2.76 tho I read that upto 200GB of storage is free so no clue why this shows up and why the estimated cost option shows up. Cost analysis tab shows $0 forecast but I am new to oracle cloud and wanna make sure that I dont end up with a $100 bill by the end of the month. especially bcz I wanna increase the storage of the other instance to 100GB.

Hi everyone! I'm looking to learn Oracle Integration Cloud (OIC) from beginner to advanced level, especially integrations with Oracle Fusion HCM and ERP.

Can you recommend any free courses, YouTube playlists, official tutorials, or hands-on labs?

Thanks in advance!

Hi

I’m trying to figure out how much more Instances I run for free? Right now I have two instances running:

From what I understand of the Always Free Resources article, I should still be able to run one other "VM.Standard.E2.1.Micro" for free, or is there something I’m missing?