Janine, Did you try "alter table modify lob(lob_column) (storage (next 1M pctincrease 0))"? This is supposed to change the LOB storage params. If that doesn't work, you can move the lob segments to another tablespace and fix the storage parameters there. By the way, this is why I hate the pctincrease. It's always been a problem since they introduced it. To me, it always causes more problems than what it is supposed to help. It would make sense if they also provided an uppermost limit to the parameter (like pctincrease until it gets to x size). But I digress. This is solved with other newer parameters. Hope this helps. Tom ________________________________ From: oracle-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:oracle-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Janine Sisk Sent: Monday, June 02, 2008 7:48 PM To: oracle-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: Re: Mystery "unable to extend" error Ok, I have figured out what the problem is, but even after Googling I don't really understand what happened or how to fix it. The tablespace was created with pct_increase set to 0: SQL> select * from dba_tablespaces where tablespace_name = 'USER_LOB'; TABLESPACE_NAME INITIAL_EXTENT NEXT_EXTENT MIN_EXTENTS ------------------------------ -------------- ----------- ----------- MAX_EXTENTS PCT_INCREASE MIN_EXTLEN STATUS CONTENTS LOGGING EXTENT_MAN ----------- ------------ ---------- --------- --------- --------- ---------- ALLOCATIO PLU --------- --- USER_LOB 53248 53248 1 2147483645 0 0 ONLINE PERMANENT LOGGING DICTIONARY USER NO However, the segment that's triggering the error has other things in mind: SQL> select next_extent, pct_increase from dba_segments where segment_name = 'SYS_LOB0000041854C00017$$'; NEXT_EXTENT PCT_INCREASE ----------- ------------ 2454011904 50 That's why it's failing; even though I have the space (barely) that's larger than an extent can be on Linux with this old version of Oracle. I'm only an occasional DBA so my knowledge of these things is admittedly rusty, but I had thought that objects created within the tablespace would inherit their storage specifications from the tablespace. Are LOB segments somehow different? Or was my understanding incorrect all along? Lastly, how do I fix this? I see that I can use an ALTER statement to reset the storage parameters, but ALTER what? The table these LOBs are associated with lives in a different tablespace. I tried altering the table, like so: alter table user_files storage (next 50K pctincrease 0); but that didn't affect the attributes of the segment. Help? thanks, janine On May 30, 2008, at 1:51 PM, Janine Sisk wrote: This is an old 8.1.7 installation on Linux, which suffers from the "2 GB per file" problem. A file upload started giving "ORA-01691: unable to extend lob segment" errors so I added another data file to the tablespace, but inexplicably (to me) the errors continue. There is now plenty of free space in the tablespace: Tablespace Name Total Bytes Used Free %Used ---------------- ------------------ --------------- ---------------- ------ USER_LOB 17,112,760,320 14,613,618,688 2,499,141,632 85.4 And yet.. error in `OCILobWrite ()': ORA-01691: unable to extend lob segment USER.SYS_LOB0000041854C00017$$ by 599124 in tablespace USER_LOB (where I have replaced the actual user name with USER) I have never seen this before; adding another data file has always been the solution in the past. I don't even know where to look next. Any suggestions? thanks, janine --- Janine Sisk President/CEO of furfly, LLC 503-693-6407 --- Janine Sisk President/CEO of furfly, LLC 503-693-6407