=====Overview===== During routine operation, we noticed that the export took 44 minutes instead of 7 minutes. After I tried to start the expdp manually, I found out that indeed it is slow and it took several minutes to even connect to the DB and start processing data. After further investigation of the sessions, I found the following waiting event: oracle 34417 SYS 22 8626 Streams AQ: enqueue blocked on low memory Tue 27 Apr 13:13:09 WAITING ACTIVE After internet investigation I have found the following solution and workaround. =====Solution===== The solution is to apply the following patches: Patch 27634991 may be applied to prevent this problem from occurring. Bug:17365043 Session hangs on "Streams AQ: enqueue blocked on low memory" Bug:24560906 High CPU usage for Background q0 processes with fix for bug 21286665 I didn't do any of these :D =====Workaround===== The workaround applies if you have the following flag on: SQL> select shrink_phase_knlasg from X$KNLASG; SHRINK_PHASE_KNLASG ------------------- 1 If that is on, force oracle to finish the job by using the following command: SQL> Alter system set events 'immediate trace name mman_create_def_request level 6'; System altered. SQL> select shrink_phase_knlasg from X$KNLASG; SHRINK_PHASE_KNLASG ------------------- 0 That solved the slow expdp for me.