Max Open Cursors

I recently had an unexpected error occur during a large index build. We recently upgraded to 7.1.3, just prior to a scheduled warehouse reload. The table sizes and definitions have not changed, but the index builds on the largest objects failed with an ORA 1000 - max cursors exceed. This message was accompanied by an ORA 604 - error occured at recursive level1. The last message leads me to believe that an excessive amount of recursive SQL is being generated during the build, but since the space is pre-allocated, and there should only be a relatively small number of dictionary related recursive calls, I cannot figure out where all the open cursors are coming from.

Although we eventually resolved the problem by increasing the open cursors parameter to 200, this does not explain why an index build should fail, especially when we have never had this problem occur with a relatively low setting for open cursors (50).

Has anyone else seen this behavior in 7.1.3, or at least have a reason for why this would occur?

--

-------------------------------------------------------------------
Rich Bromberg                     |  dbINTELLECT Technologies, Inc.
Database Consultant               |  Lakewood, Colo.


                                  |  (303) 763-3822

                                  |  email: bromberg_at_dbintellect.com         


                                  |  fax: (303) 763-4262


-------------------------------------------------------------------