Database Software

ORA-06553: PLS-561: character set mismatch on value for parameter 'STR1'

Some reports started failing that had previously worked ok; they gave the above error. We are unaware of any database or code changes that might have triggered this and there is nothing in the alert log or the trace directories that appears relevant.

As a test we created a function:

FUNCTION
test(
str1 in ccm.collector_ranges.start_range%type,
str2 in ccm.collector_ranges.start_range%type) return varchar2 is
begin
return str1||str2;
end test;

and ran the following queries:

select vcpreport.test(ccm.collector_ranges.start_range,'xy') from ccm.collector_ranges
*
ERROR at line 1:
ORA-06553: PLS-561: character set mismatch on value for parameter 'STR1'

and ...

select vcpreport.test(to_char(ccm.collector_ranges.start_range),'xy') from ccm.collector_ranges;

Which returned rows ok.

Does anyone know what is causing this error?

Database is 81700 on HPUX 11