Re: Object no longer exists

In article <33E7F010.4B88873E_at_erols.com>,   Martin Smith <mfsmith_at_erols.com> wrote:

> Anyone seen this message? Got it in a query where I had several columns
> in the where clause. I removed one of the cols and the message went
> away. So it seems the object (whatever that is) did still exist after
> all. IOW, a not-very-helpful message.

Been there, seen that. ORA-08103. It's an index error, caused by a terrible bug. You're probably using either 7.3.2.2 or 7.3.2.3. There's a patch for it, and 7.3.2.3 supposedly fixed it, but I've even seen it in the patched version.

How to identify the bad index: check the explain plan. It's usually an index that was built based on an existing index. That is, if you create a concatenated index on columns A, B, C, and then create an index on A, then Oracle will use the existing A-B-C index as the data source for the new index. This is new with 7.3 and you cannot control this behavior except by creating the "A" index before creating the A-B-C index.

How to get around the problem: start nullifying indexes in your where clause by adding null strings to character columns an 0 to number columns until the error goes away. That will help you identify the index that has the problem.

What you did was remove the index access. THE INDEX IS STILL BAD, and will kill other queries until you rebuild it (in the proper order, of course).

Another common related problem is the creation of empty indexes - a query with a where clause that uses the index returns 0 records; drop the index and you get the proper result.

> The only odd element in the scenario was that the query was done on a
> workgroup adtabase and the tables were synonyms to data on another
> server.

It's a highly confusing error message, and the advised action to take provided in the manuals is worthless.

-Kevin Loney

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