WARNING: if you ever want Oracle serializable transactions to be safe

Hi. I have verified with Oracle that there is a longstanding bug in the Oracle DBMS, which may cause transactions with SERIALIZABLE isolation level to silently fail. This affects EJBs as well as any other transactional client.

The bug arises in transactions where a given row is inserted then updated within a single transaction. The update may silently fail. This is a common EJB scenario.

   Tech support has told me that the bug (Oracle bug #440317) has been repeatedly put off being fixed (since Jan '97) because of the scope of work involved in fixing it.

    If you might be affected by this bug, you should contact Oracle support about Oracle bug #440317, and add your concern to the case. Only when there is a critical mass of awareness and concern will Oracle feel justified in committing the resources to this issue.

Thank you in advance if you speak up, and forgiveness requested for your time if this is not of your concern.

Joe Weinstein at BEA, the home of WebLogic

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PS: Folks: BEA WebLogic is in S.F., and now has some entry-level positions for people who want to work with Java and E-Commerce infrastructure products. Send resumes to joe_at_beasys.com

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