Desc table_name statements no longer running in sql developer

Question

simple desc statements like desc table_name; used to run in sql developer however they no longer work.
It was working a few days ago and now the same statements dont return any results. The tables exist as I can run select statements fine just not desc table_name;
Any ideas how this can be fixed?

Answer 1

I haven't had problems with the "desc table_name;" functionality for a long time - do you know of anything that has changed since they were working a few days ago?
If you run the following query with :1 being the table owner and :2 being the table name, do you get the columns listed?SELECT t.column_name "Name",
  DECODE(t.nullable,'Y',NULL,'NOT NULL') "Null",
  UPPER(t.data_type)
  ||
  CASE
    WHEN ( t.data_type = 'VARCHAR' OR t.data_type = 'VARCHAR2' OR t.data_type = 'RAW' OR t.data_type = 'CHAR' )
        AND ( t.data_length != 0 AND NVL(t.data_length,-1) != -1)
    THEN
      CASE
        WHEN(t.char_used = 'C' AND 'BYTE' = (SELECT value FROM nls_session_parameters WHERE PARAMETER = 'NLS_LENGTH_SEMANTICS' ))
        THEN '(' || t.char_length || ' CHAR)'
        WHEN(t.char_used = 'B' AND 'CHAR' = (SELECT value FROM nls_session_parameters WHERE PARAMETER = 'NLS_LENGTH_SEMANTICS' ))
        THEN '(' || t.data_length || ' BYTE)'
        WHEN(t.char_used = 'C' AND 'CHAR' = (SELECT value FROM nls_session_parameters WHERE PARAMETER = 'NLS_LENGTH_SEMANTICS' ))
        THEN '(' || t.char_length || ')'
        WHEN(t.char_used = 'B' AND 'BYTE' = (SELECT value FROM nls_session_parameters WHERE PARAMETER = 'NLS_LENGTH_SEMANTICS' ))
        THEN '(' || t.data_length || ')'
        ELSE '(' || t.data_length || ' BYTE)'
      END
    WHEN (t.data_type = 'NVARCHAR2' OR t.data_type = 'NCHAR')
    THEN '(' || t.data_length/2 || ')'
    WHEN (t.data_type LIKE 'TIMESTAMP%' OR t.data_type LIKE 'INTERVAL DAY%' OR t.data_type LIKE 'INTERVAL YEAR%' OR t.data_type = 'DATE' OR(t.data_type = 'NUMBER' AND (t.data_precision       = 0 OR NVL(t.data_precision,-1) = -1)))
    THEN ''
    WHEN (t.data_scale = 0 OR NVL(t.data_scale,-1) = -1)
    THEN '(' || t.data_precision ||')'
    ELSE '(' || t.data_precision ||',' ||t.data_scale ||')'
  END "Type"
FROM sys.all_tab_columns t,
  sys.all_col_comments c
WHERE t.column_name = c.column_name
AND c.owner         = t.owner
AND c.table_name    = t.table_name
AND UPPER(t.owner)  = UPPER(:1)
AND t.table_name    = :2
ORDER BY t.column_idtheFurryOne