As mentioned earlier I applied the 9205 patch set to the w2k yesterday. today we are getting issues. it seems that we cannont use an explicit join in our queries where they were working in the 9201 base install. anyone have any ideas why this would occur? Syntax that does NOT work: select * from star.fact_invoice_item f join rbl_views.v_time_period t on t.dw_time_period_id = f.dw_time_period_id join star.mv_dim_customer_flat c on c.dw_customer_id = f.dw_ship_to_customer_id where f.system_name = 'BPCS_HHG' and f.invoice_effective_date = '14-jan-2005'; Same query but with the implicit syntax and returns no errors: select * from star.fact_invoice_item f, rbl_views.v_time_period t, star.mv_dim_customer_flat c where t.dw_time_period_id = f.dw_time_period_id and c.dw_customer_id = f.dw_ship_to_customer_id and f.system_name = 'BPCS_HHG' and f.invoice_effective_date = '14-jan-2005'; -- Bryan S Wells - DBA Newbie bunjibry@xxxxxxxxx -- //www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l