We have sporadic ora-1555 on an exceptionally simple statement that occurs frequently in the application. How can you analyze why this tiny, simple statement is causing an ORA-1555? The statement is: SELECT RESV_NAME_ID , RESORT FROM RESERVATION_NAME WHERE CONFIRMATION_NO = :1 I believe that this causes a user session to hang. Our third party vendor says that it is because a user terminates their session improperly and that it is not an issue. Any suggestions on how to analyze the cause and the system impact? TIA, Nancy Iles Omni Hotels ________________________________ > Date: Tue, 14 Jul 2009 10:24:00 -0300 > Subject: Undo Usage and Read consistency - ORA-1555 > From: cicciuxdba@xxxxxxxxx > To: oracle-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx > > Dear DBAs, > > We got into a discussion about how read consistency is implemented in Oracle > and was wondering what you know of this. > > The two sides are the following: > 1) Undo is used for any and all selects, so if you do a full scan on a large > table it is bound to give ORA-1555 even if there is no transaction modifying > the table > > 2) Undo is only used when a transaction modifies data (DML) and ONLY then > ORA-1555 is possible, since it happens when the consistent version of the > block stored in the UNDO by the transaction ages out. > > Documentation is unclear to this respect: > > From the concepts guide: > > To manage the multiversion consistency model, Oracle must create a > read-consistent set of data when a table is queried (read) and > simultaneously updated (written). When an update occurs, the original > data values changed by the update are recorded in the database undo > records. As long as this update remains part of an uncommitted > transaction, any user that later queries the modified data views the > original data values. Oracle uses current information in the system > global area and information in the undo records to construct a > read-consistent view of a table's data for a query. > > Does this mean that every time I perform a select I get a copy of the data > into de undo? > > > Alan Bort > Oracle Certified Professional _________________________________________________________________ Hotmail® has ever-growing storage! Don’t worry about storage limits. http://windowslive.com/Tutorial/Hotmail/Storage?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_WL_HM_Tutorial_Storage_062009-- //www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l