Complex CLOB Updates Fail With ORA-01461 After RDBMS Upgraded To 11.2.0.1 (Doc ID 1222296.1)

Symptoms

When using various versions of the Oracle JDBC driver against an 11.2.0.1 RDBMS, attempts to update a CLOB column fail with the following error:

ORA-01461: can bind a LONG value only for insert into a LONG column

The following characteristics are observed:

* The problem reproduces with any version of the JDBC driver against an 11.2.0.1 database
* The problem does not reproduce with database versions older than 11.2.0.1
* The problem occurs when the variable length being updated exceeds 4000 characters (despite the fact that the field is a CLOB)
* The problem occurs when an UPDATE statement contains a sub-select statement; when the UPDATE statement does not contain a sub-select statement, the problem does not occur

An example of such an UPDATE statement containing a sub-select:

The problem occurs whether the Java code uses setCharacterStream() or setString().

Changes

The problem appears after installing or upgrading the database to version 11.2.0.1.

Cause

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