Can OCI_CONNECT cause a ORA-01438: value larger than specified precision allowed for this column?

Question

I'm wondering if oci_connect() can cause a 1438 error, because i get this all the time:

Warning: oci_connect() [function.oci-connect]: ORA-00604: error occurred at recursive SQL level 1 ORA-01438: value larger than specified precision allowed for this column ORA-06512: at line 8 in /xxxxxx/some.php on line 220

It's not depending on which table is being queried. It seems like oci_connect() is inserting some trackingstaff in some sys table, or maybe a trigger is related with the logon. But i don't have the permission to figure out this problem in sys.

Any Idea what could be the cause for this error?

Update

Does oracle do some logging somewhere automatically out of box without configured to specifically? Can i somehow let oracle or PHP show me which table or column is affected?

Update I found out that, when i call the PHP Script in Bash directly, it does work fine. But a call from web will cause titled problem. Any Idea?

Answer 1

The message error occurred at recursive SQL level 1 suggests to me that the error is arising within a trigger. My guess is that there is an AFTER LOGON ON SCHEMA or DATABASE trigger, and for some reason it causes an error when your web server process attempts to connect.

Here's an example of how to generate the error you're getting. I have a table called TINY, with a single column that can only take values up to 99:

SQL> desc tiny;
 Name                                      Null?    Type
 ----------------------------------------- -------- ----------------------------
 N                                                  NUMBER(2)

Now let's create a user account and verify that they can connect:

SQL> create user fred identified by fred account unlock;

User created.

SQL> grant connect to fred;

Grant succeeded.

SQL> connect fred/fred
Connected.

Good - let's log back in as me and create a trigger that will cause an error if FRED attempts to connect:

SQL> connect luke/password
Connected.
SQL> create or replace trigger after_logon_error_if_fred
  2    after logon on database
  3  begin
  4    if user = 'FRED' then
  5      insert into tiny (n) values (100);
  6    end if;
  7  end;
  8  /

Trigger created.

Recall that our TINY table can only store values up to 99. So, what happens when FRED attempts to connect?

SQL> connect fred/fred
ERROR:
ORA-00604: error occurred at recursive SQL level 1
ORA-01438: value larger than specified precision allowed for this column
ORA-06512: at line 3

Other than the line number, and the bit PHP added, that's exactly the message you got.

If you want to see whether there are any AFTER LOGON triggers in your database, try running the query

SELECT trigger_name, owner FROM all_triggers
 WHERE TRIM(triggering_event) = 'LOGON';

On my database (Oracle 11g XE beta), I get the following output:

TRIGGER_NAME                   OWNER
------------------------------ ------------------------------
AFTER_LOGON_ERROR_IF_FRED      LUKE

I don't believe Oracle does any logging out-of-the-box, and I'd be surprised if PHP's oci_connect does either.

I can only speculate as to why the error arises only for your web server and not when you run PHP from a bash script. Perhaps the trigger is querying V$SESSION and trying to figure out what user account is trying to connect to the database?

Answer 2

Well, depending on the column, you're either trying to insert a number that's larger than the allowed bounds for a numeric column, or you're trying to insert a string into a varchar2(n) column that is longer than n characters. Here are more specifics on Oracle datatypes.

Without more specific information as to what's being inserted into what column in what table at line 220 of some.php, I can't be of much more direct help.