Error while running index creation

Question

Hi All ,
I am running index creation step like below .
alter session enable parallel DDL;
alter session set workarea_size_policy=manual;
alter session set sort_area_size=250000000;
alter session set db_file_multiblock_read_count=128;
CREATE INDEX "CUST_ROUTE_IDX" ON "CUST_2_K2K" ("PP2S", "KK2S")
PCTFREE 10 INITRANS 2 MAXTRANS 255 NOLOGGING
STORAGE( INITIAL 5M
NEXT 16777216
MINEXTENTS 1
MAXEXTENTS 2147483645
PCTINCREASE 0
FREELISTS 1
FREELIST GROUPS 1
BUFFER_POOL DEFAULT)
TABLESPACE "INDX" PARALLEL 2;
when i am running like above i am getting following error..
CREATE INDEX "CUST_ROUTE_IDX" ON "CUST_ROUTE_IDX" ("PP2S", "KK2S")
**ERROR at line 1:**
**ORA-00604: error occurred at recursive SQL level 1**
**ORA-04031: unable to allocate 38410272 bytes of shared memory ("large**
**pool","SEQ$","QERHJ hash-joi","kllcqc:kllcqslt")**
DB is ORA 10gR2 installed on 8 cpu machine with 32 GB of RAM . From Unix Top command i can understand that 18GB of RAM is free.
When i remove "alter session set sort_area_size=250000000;" and run above script no error is coming .
But enough memory is availabe to the machine as per UNIX . Can any one help me out why this err is coming .
Also when I do " show parameter sort_area_size " in any new sqlplus session it displays 65536
This value is in bytes/KB/MB ...pls advice
Thanks in Advance

Answer 1

Please read any error message carefully, prior to posting.
**ORA-04031: unable to allocate 38410272 bytes of shared memory (*"large**
**pool"*,"SEQ$","QERHJ hash-joi","kllcqc:kllcqslt")**
Oracle is trying to allocate memory in the large pool, and the large pool is too small.
The sort_area_size has nothing to do with it.
Also there is no gain in setting the work_policy to manual, as Oracle will allocate memory beyond pga_aggregate_target automagically.
There is also no gain in setting db_file_multiblock_read_count, as Oracle will adjust that automagically.
Sort_area_size is in bytes, as documented, and it is your value in the spfile/init.ora which is the default or which you have set.
You can read about this in the documentation which is online at http://tahiti.oracle.com
Sybrand Bakker
Senior Oracle DBA