After a recent upgrade to 9206, hit the following bug introduced in 9206. Just for your info of those who are planning for upgrade. The patch set released for AIX, HP RISC 64 Linux x86 and Solaris 32 and 64 bit. Patchset for Windows being back ported. This is still not reported as known bug so far patchset update document. Regards Rafiq Bug 4015165 Unexpected ORA-6502 from PLSQL using host binds when using CHAR length semantics This note gives a brief overview of bug 4015165. Affects: Product (Component) PL/SQL (Plsql) Range of versions believed to be affected Versions >= 9.2.0.6 but < 10.2 Versions confirmed as being affected * 9.2.0.6 Platforms affected Generic (all / most platforms affected) It is believed to be a regression in default behaviour thus: * Regression introduced in 9.2.0.6 -- //www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l