Oracle Ignores hint in One Instance and uses the hint in another instance

Question

Hi Oracle World,
I am experiencing a strange problem in Oracle.
We have two oracle servers: one for Test and one for Production.
We have exactly the same code for a view in both the systems:
The code is as follows:
CREATE OR REPLACE FORCE VIEW V_FT(...................)
AS
SELECT /*+ star_transformation fact (FT) */
FT.*, AH.ACCT_1, LH.REGION, FH.FNCT_1
FROM
LOCATION_HIERARCHY LH,
ACCOUNT_HIERARCHY AH,
FUNCTIONAL_HIERARCHY FH,
FACT_TABLE FT
WHERE
LH.COMPANY = FT.COMPANY
AND AH.ACCOUNT = FT.ACCOUNT
AND FH.FUNCTIONR = FT.FUNCTION;
When I see the execution path:
In Test box the Explain plan is as expected: It takes the Star_transformation hint into account, converts all three reference table joins to bitmap and performance is good.
But In Production, It tatally ignores the table name from the hint.
Also it converts all the tables names to lower case: though it shouldn't impact, I have also tried to give the table names in lower case and then tried. Same issue.
Tried with NO_MERGE hint. It was pretty good in Test but same issue in Production: it ignoes the table name from hint.
I have taken out the table name from test and then tested. Now both the explain plans match. That proves oracle ignores the table name in Production.
We have compared all the parameters in both. They are 100% same. All indexes are analyzed. Can anyone please help what could be the fundamental difference that causes this difference?
Production takes 8 minutes for a specific query whereas Test returns the same query in 45 secs. Data volume is also not very much different except few hundreds.
Any pointers please?
Thanks & Regards
Saswati

Answer 1

It is enabled. As I have mentioned we have compared all the parameters in both.
All v$parameter, init.ora settings everything is same.