SQL & PL/SQL

Hi,

I've found on the forums some information about why a package could become invalidated.

We are encountering the 'ORA-04068: existing state of packages has been discarded' error (see stack trace at the bottom of this message).

We get this error at random (not at a specific moment in time). And always with the same package.

I found on the forums that a cause could be:
- a view, used in the package, that gets renamed (this is not the case).
- package level variables (I can not check this myself. Our client, who runs the Oracle instance, is doing that now).

1. Are there any other causes of a package becomming invalid?

2. Related: does a synonym become invalid when it's underlying package is invalid, or can a synonym be invalid, while it's underlying package is not?

3. Can our client, who is reluctant in accepting the fact that the problem lies with their Oracle database (i.e. packages being invalidated), check the exact reason of the invalidation in more detail (logs, ...)?


Thanks in advance for any insights,
Vincent



Stack:
ORA-04068: existing state of packages has been discarded
ORA-04061: existing state of package body "MYCLIENT.THEPACKAGE" has been invalidated
ORA-04065: not executed, altered or dropped package body "MYCLIENT.THEPACKAGE"
ORA-06508: PL/SQL: could not find program unit being called
ORA-06512: at line 1