The activate config with SCN option results in “cannot complete recovery activation” and “previous activation detected” (4300380)

The following errors are observed in sp_ctrl when activating a config with SCN option (shown here is an actual screen shot)

sp_ctrl (alvsupu15:5438)> activate config config_file_name scn=2460420169

   Cannot complete recovery activation.

The following errors are observed in event log:

sp_ctrl (alvsupu15:5438)> show log reverse

Info     2017-06-13 19:26:20.806434 21016 1 Activation exited with code=1, pid = 7756  (activating datasource o.ORA11GR2)

Error    2017-06-13 19:26:20.759843 7756 1 Compile of "config_file_name" for database o.ORA11GR2 failed: Cannot complete recovery activation.

Error    2017-06-13 19:26:20.758485 7756 1 Activation: Cannot complete recovery activation.  (activating datasource o.ORA11GR2) [module ocf]

Error    2017-06-13 19:26:20.756806 7756 1 Activation: Previous activation detected.  (activating datasource o.ORA11GR2) [module ocf]