Discoverer and ORA-1483 Errors

This article is based on a friend’s Discoverer experiences. He had an issue with Discoverer 10.1.2 where every time a user tried to save a workbook to the database they got the following error: (unable to save a workbook to the database).

ORA-1483 INVALID LENGTH FOR DATE OR NUMBER

Upon further investigation it was noted that they were using 10.1.0.4 version of the database and that the database was installed onto a HP-UX(PA-RSIC) 64 bit server.

According to Oracle there is a known bug, number 3668164 entitled "SAVING A WORKBOOK USING DISCOVERER 10G GIVES - ORA-1483", within the 10.1.0.4 database that will prevent Discoverer from being able to save to the database. Upon further investigation it turns out that the operating system is a red herring and that this issue can in fact arise on any operating system!

The solution is to patch the database to 10.1.0.5 or higher. Apparently there is a one-off patch for 3668164, unless your database is running on a Windows server. In this case you will have to apply the full 10.1.0.5 database upgrade. So after that the client upgraded their database to 10.1.0.5 anyway, as many other bugs were fixed in this release.

After they upgraded their database the issue went away.

Note on this bug: bug 3668164 is not available for public viewing. This is most frustrating because Oracle has a lot of cross references to it on MetaLink.

Posted on behalf of:
Srinu Katreddi | Oracle Applications Consultant