What happens if you remove the purge? I think it is a bad idea to ever create non-Oracle provided objects in the SYS schema. Every object owned by user SYS should be created via the install or running an Oracle provided script otherwise you should be using "create table username.junk"; -----Original Message----- From: oracle-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:oracle-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Thomas Day Sent: Thursday, August 02, 2012 9:39 AM To: oracle-l Subject: Can't drop a table, even as sysdba SQL> SHO USER USER is "SYS" SQL> CREATE TABLE JUNK (JUNQUE NUMBER); Table created. SQL> DROP TABLE JUNK PURGE; DROP TABLE JUNK PURGE * ERROR at line 1: ORA-00604: error occurred at recursive SQL level 1 ORA-00942: table or view does not exist ORA-06512: at line 19 SQL> DESC SYS.JUNK Name Null? Type ----------------------------------------- -------- --------------------------- JUNQUE NUMBER SQL> select * from v$version; BANNER -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Oracle Database 11g Enterprise Edition Release 11.2.0.3.0 - 64bit Production PL/SQL Release 11.2.0.3.0 - Production CORE 11.2.0.3.0 Production TNS for 64-bit Windows: Version 11.2.0.3.0 - Production NLSRTL Version 11.2.0.3.0 - Production Any ideas would be greatly appreciated. Thanks -- //www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l -- //www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l