ORA-39142: incompatible version number 5.1 in dump file

Recently I have encountered below error while importing database dump file on Oracle Database 11gR2 and dump file was exported from 19c database.

ORA-39001: invalid argument value
ORA-39000: bad dump file specification
ORA-39142: incompatible version number 5.1 in dump file "/u01/HYDSERVER/admin/rhyddb22/dpdump/testing.dmp"

This is basically downgrade situation, because we are exporting dump file in 19c database and importing it into 11g database. To overcome this error, while exporting the dump file in 19c database we need to explicitly use VERSION parameter which specified to be the target COMPATIBLE initialization parameter. 

Here in my case, the target database COMPATIBLE initialization parameter is 11.2. So need to specify same value for the VERSION parameter during export the dump file. 

Source side on 19c database with compatible 19.0.0:

-bash-4.2$ expdp directory=DATA_PUMP_DIR dumpfile=testing.dmp logfile=testing.log tables=testing_tables version=11.2

Target side on 11gR2 database with compatible 11.2:

-bash-4.2$ impdp directory=DATA_PUMP_DIR dumpfile=testing.dmp logfile=testing_imp.log  tables=testing_tables

That's it, hope this article will help you.

Thank you !!