One of the things I love about this list is that not only do some really sharp and experienced folks dwell here, but they are willing to share from their depths of knowledge and help expose Oracle internals to us lesser beings. Some do this by way of inference, scientifically or otherwise. Others either used to work for Oracle or still do and drop golden nuggets every once in a while. I have to admit it is tempting to want to find a kernel guy and pick his brain sometime. =) I am sure there is a gag-order or NDA (non-disclosure agreement) that Oracle Employees have to swear their life to, which makes the pearls that one finds here all the more worthwhile. Thanks to all you who share for the benefit for the rest of us. charles schultz oracle dba aits - adsd university of illinois -----Original Message----- From: Michael.Coll-Barth@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx To: oracle-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2006 16:38:45 -0500 Christian, David, Thanks, I tried MetaLink, but it just tells me that there is a problem. I am not a DBA, just a lowly user. My DBA had already opened a TAR with support. The plan is to apply a security patch and a patch for this error sometime in February. Maybe I just haven't figured out how to use MetaLink properly. The reason I ask was more out of curiosity; there seems to be folks on here that know Oracle better than Oracle. This query was so darn simple that I am still amazed that it could cause an error. I was hoping for a better workaround than a UNION ALL of two queries. Mind you, "where churn_dt in ( '01-jan-2004', '31-dec-2004' )", does not work either. Michael