Amir, While you are getting a 10053 trace, you can try one more thing. gather stats on the table with method_opt=> 'FOR ALL HIDDEN COLUMNS' function indexes are internally implemented by adding a hidden column to the table that stores the value with the function applied. I have seen missing stats on this column causing function index to not to be picked up. Rakesh Managing Principal DB Perf Inc. On Wed, Oct 5, 2011 at 6:43 PM, Hameed, Amir <Amir.Hameed@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: > VOUCHER_NO contains 7 digits. > SYSTEM has 24 distinct values > > This table contains around 10,749,644 rows and the function-based index has > 10,442,518 distinct values. So, the index is pretty selective. Without > forcing the index via the RULE hint, the job ran for over 8 hours and had to > be killed. With the rule hint, it ran in 15 minutes. > > -- //www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l