Alter Type in Oracle Fails with ORA-22324 and ORA-21700

Question

I'm trying to add an attribute to an already existing Object Type in an Oracle 10.2.0.4 DB. The schema is valid, and everything is working before running the following statement:

ALTER TYPE sometype ADD ATTRIBUTE (somefield varchar(14))
CASCADE INCLUDING TABLE DATA
/
SHOW ERRORS

The alter fails with an ORA-22324 and an ORA-21700. Afterwards most of the schema objects which depend on sometype are invalid. Compiling them all, restores the schema to a working state.

Anyone seen that kind of error?

Answer 1

ORA-22324 is "Altered type has compilation errors", and ORA-21700 is "Object does not exist or is marked for delete". Sounds like the body of your type may be referencing something which has been deleted.

I hope this helps.