Exception when working with UTL_HTTP.read_text

Question

Hi,
I have written a block of code to read XML from a URL and then I write it to a file, using UTL_HTTP package.
The code has been working fine for two months and all of a sudden, I get the following error while reading from one of the URLs:
ORA-29273: HTTP request failed
ORA-06512: at "SYS.UTL_HTTP", line
1327
ORA-06502: PL/SQL: numeric or value error
The piece of code is pasted below for your reference.
http_req := utl_http.begin_request('my_url','GET','HTTP/1.1');
utl_http.set_body_charset(http_req, 'UTF-8');
utl_http.set_header(http_req, 'Content-Type', 'text/xml');
http_resp:= utl_http.get_response(http_req);
LOOP
     UTL_HTTP.read_text(http_resp, l_text, 32767);
     UTL_FILE.PUT_LINE(file_handle, l_text);
END LOOP;However, when I reduce the number of characters to be read in UTL_HTTP.read_text to 30000, it works. FYI, it isn't working with 32000 as well, while it worked perfect with 32767 all this while. This exception came up today.
I understand this has something to do with the data being read, however, my question is:
1. If I specify that 32767 characters are to be read, why should there be a buffer problem? (I am executing the same procedure for 10 other URLs and they are working fine. Its just one URL which has given a problem today)
2. What is a good solution to implement? If i reduce the number to 30000 to solve the problem today, and it gives the same problem the next time, reducing the number further doesn't look like a permanent solution.
Appreciate your help on this. Please let me know if I need to furnish any more details on this.

Answer 1

Roger,
I have another question here. I declare the text into which I am reading my response chunk as:
l_text          VARCHAR2(32767 char);rather than plainly declaring it as:
l_text          VARCHAR2(32767);the second method defaults it to 32767 bytes, but isn't the first way taking it as 32767 character values?
Even now I get the same exception. Any clue here?