OracleHomeInventory gets null oracleHomeInfo | OPatch | inventory is corrupted | is a symbolic link | does not exist in Central Inventory

Missing Inventory Configuration

Inventory load failed... OPatch cannot load inventory for the given Oracle Home. 
Possible causes are: 
Oracle Home dir. path does not exist in Central Inventory 
Oracle Home is a symbolic link 
Oracle Home inventory is corrupted 
LsInventorySession failed: OracleHomeInventory gets null oracleHomeInfo


In my case - I just placed the inventory.xml with correct entries

2013.12.17 13:09:10 [ oracle@<hostname>:/oracle/app/oracle/product/11.2.0/dbhome_1/inventory/ContentsXML ]

 $ cat inventory.xml

<?xml version="1.0" standalone="yes" ?>

<!-- Copyright (c) 2009 Oracle Corporation. All rights Reserved -->

<!-- Do not modify the contents of this file by hand. -->

<INVENTORY>

<VERSION_INFO>

   <SAVED_WITH>11.2.0.3.0</SAVED_WITH>

   <MINIMUM_VER>11.2.0.3.0</MINIMUM_VER>

</VERSION_INFO>

<HOME_LIST>

<HOME NAME="orahome_112" LOC="/oracle/<>/product/11.2.0/dbhome_1" TYPE="O" IDX="1"/>

<HOME NAME="agent10g" LOC="/oracle/<>/product/agent12c" TYPE="O" IDX="2"/>

</HOME_LIST>

</INVENTORY>

2013.12.17 13:09:15 [ oracle@<hostname>:/oracle/app/oracle/product/11.2.0/dbhome_1/inventory/ContentsXML ]

 $

The other way is to use the oracle installer.

$ ./runInstaller -silent -ignoreSysPrereqs -attachHome ORACLE_HOME="/<YrPth>/product/11.2.0.3" ORACLE_HOME_NAME="orahome_112"

Starting Oracle Universal Installer...