ORA-00918

ORA-00918 After Upgrade To 10.2.0.5 [ID 1450531.1]

Applies to:

Oracle Server - Enterprise Edition - Version 10.2.0.3 to 10.2.0.5 [Release 10.2]
Information in this document applies to any platform.

Symptoms

After upgrading the Database to 10.2.0.5 and attempting to run a select statement with an ANSI join, the following error is raised:

ORA-00918: column ambiguously defined

Changes

The database was upgraded from 10.2.0.4 to 10.2.0.5

Cause

In 10.2.0.4 it used to work due to an Oracle known issue registered as
Bug 5368296 - SQL NOT GENERATING ORA-00918 WHEN USING JOIN

Solution

This is considered to be an expected behavior. From 10.2.0.5 onwards, we have become more *STRICT* in column definition.
If there are 'ambiguous' columns, like columns that are common to joined tables, you need to reference the exact table.column names or an alias. Otherwise a select will fail.

The issue is fixed in:

• 11.1.0.6 Base Release
  
• 10.2.0.5 Patch set
  Refer to
  Note 1088172.1 - 10.2.0.5 Patch Set - List of Bug Fixes by Problem Type
  
• 10.2.0.4 Patch 2 on Windows Platforms 
  Refer to
  Note 342443.1 - 10.2.0.x Oracle Database and Networking Patches for Microsoft Platforms