ORA-01722: Invalid Number - Weird Problem

We have an ADF application, which hooks into Portal and SOA running on Weblogic 10.3.6 in a Fusion Middleware environment.

A few weeks ago after pushing a new release of the code to production, users encountered an ORA-01722 error in some screens of the application.    We captured the SQL and could run it via SQL*Plus and Sql Developer with no errors.

We opened an SR with Oracle and they offered some suggestions and in the end recommended a patch to fix a shared cursor bug.   We haven't applied that patch yet because we are on the latest PSU for 11.1.0.7 and that patch isn't available for it.  So we've issued a patch request with Oracle.

The weird problem is, that when my co-worker starts the WebLogic Managed Server, the users do not encounter the ORA-01722 error.   The only difference is that I am ssh'ing from a Mac and he is on windows.   We ssh into the same generic account and execute the same steps.  We've also confirmed that I can restart the server a dozen times with the error and my co-worker has never had the problem. We've verified this a few times.

Today we had some more maintenance and I tried restarting the server again.    Users encountered the same ORA-01722 error.   I restarted the server again but this time from my windows computer using SecureCRT.   Error disappears.

The following is a diff between a mac and windows ssh session.   There isn't a huge difference.

< TERM=xterm

---

> TERM=xterm-256color

5c5

< SSH_CLIENT=X.X.X.X 57952 22

---

> SSH_CLIENT=X.X.X.X 65516 22

7c7

< SSH_TTY=/dev/pts/1

---

> SSH_TTY=/dev/pts/4

10c10

< LS_COLORS=no=00:fi=00:di=00;34:ln=00;36:pi=40;33:so=00;35:bd=40;33;01:cd=40;33;01:or=01;05;37;41:mi=01;05;37;41:ex=00;32:*.cmd=00;32:*.exe=00;32:*.com=00;32:*.btm=00;32:*.bat=00;32:*.sh=00;32:*.csh=00;32:*.tar=00;31:*.tgz=00;31:*.arj=00;31:*.taz=00;31:*.lzh=00;31:*.zip=00;31:*.z=00;31:*.Z=00;31:*.gz=00;31:*.bz2=00;31:*.bz=00;31:*.tz=00;31:*.rpm=00;31:*.cpio=00;31:*.jpg=00;35:*.gif=00;35:*.bmp=00;35:*.xbm=00;35:*.xpm=00;35:*.png=00;35:*.tif=00;35:

---

> LS_COLORS=

16c16

< LANG=en_US.UTF-8

---

> LANG=en_CA.UTF-8

23c23

< SSH_CONNECTION=X.X.X.X 57952 X.X.X.X 22

---

> SSH_CONNECTION=X.X.X.X 65516 X.X.X.X 22

The only one that catches my eye is the LANG env variable but I honestly don't see that as having any affect on the application.   If there was an environmental difference I would expect to see other types of issues.  ORA-01722 is pretty specific.

Also, we can only reproduce this on our production server.   If I restart DEV/TEST from my Mac there are no issues.    During a future maintenance window I may try changing the different environment settings after I ssh in from my Mac just to see if the error re-occurs.

Regardless, we'll still proceed with the patch request just in case it happens again.  Weird Problem!