Nchar issue

Question

Hi we're having an issue on our production server with nchars. It is as follows:
We have a person table with an active field which has an nchar with Y/N check constraint on it. We also have a view which includes all the fields of the person table and some information from a few other tables.
The issue we have is a bunch of queries on the person_view which look for active people return no rows on our production server but work fine on our test server. We have tracked this down to the active field. (Please see example queries below the result in bold is the cause of our issue). I believe the problem is that the test server has a different character set to the production server (not a good idea I know). I am currently trying to rectify this however it has not be straight forward.
What's really weird is that the problem seems limited to views and does not occur when querying a table. Can anyone explain why this occurs? Is this a bug or is there a good reason for this behavior?
Test Server:_
SQL> select count(*) from person where active = 'Y';
COUNT(*)
519
SQL> select count(*) from person_view where active = 'Y';
COUNT(*)
519
SQL> select count(*) from person_view where active like 'Y';
COUNT(*)
519
SQL> SELECT value$ FROM sys.props$ WHERE name = 'NLS_CHARACTERSET' ;
VALUE$
AL32UTF8
Production Server:*
SQL> select count(*) from person where active = 'Y';
COUNT(*)
519
SQL> select count(*) from person_view where active = 'Y';
COUNT()*
*0*
SQL> select count(*) from person_view where active like 'Y';
COUNT(*)
519
SQL> select value$ from sys.props$ where name = 'NLS_CHARACTERSET';
VALUE$
WE8MSWIN1252

Answer 1

Details below. (Test and production servers quite different which I know is bad practice. Am working to rectify this also.)
Thanks in advance.
Test Server:
O/S = MS Server 2008 Standard Service Pack 1 32 bit
Oracle 10g XE (10.2.0.1.0)
SQL> select * from nls_database_parameters;
PARAMETER
VALUE
NLS_LANGUAGE
AMERICAN
NLS_TERRITORY
AMERICA
NLS_CURRENCY
$
PARAMETER
VALUE
NLS_ISO_CURRENCY
AMERICA
NLS_NUMERIC_CHARACTERS
NLS_CHARACTERSET
AL32UTF8
PARAMETER
VALUE
NLS_CALENDAR
GREGORIAN
NLS_DATE_FORMAT
DD-MON-RR
NLS_DATE_LANGUAGE
AMERICAN
PARAMETER
VALUE
NLS_SORT
BINARY
NLS_TIME_FORMAT
HH.MI.SSXFF AM
NLS_TIMESTAMP_FORMAT
DD-MON-RR HH.MI.SSXFF AM
PARAMETER
VALUE
NLS_TIME_TZ_FORMAT
HH.MI.SSXFF AM TZR
NLS_TIMESTAMP_TZ_FORMAT
DD-MON-RR HH.MI.SSXFF AM TZR
NLS_DUAL_CURRENCY
$
PARAMETER
VALUE
NLS_COMP
BINARY
NLS_LENGTH_SEMANTICS
BYTE
NLS_NCHAR_CONV_EXCP
FALSE
PARAMETER
VALUE
NLS_NCHAR_CHARACTERSET
AL16UTF16
NLS_RDBMS_VERSION
10.2.0.1.0
20 rows selected.
Production Server:
O/S = MS Server 2008 Standard Service Pack 1 64 bit
Oracle 11g Standard Edition (11.1.0.7.0)
SQL> select * from nls_database_parameters;
PARAMETER VALUE
NLS_LANGUAGE AMERICAN
NLS_TERRITORY AMERICA
NLS_CURRENCY $
NLS_ISO_CURRENCY AMERICA
NLS_NUMERIC_CHARACTERS .,
NLS_CHARACTERSET WE8MSWIN1252
NLS_CALENDAR GREGORIAN
NLS_DATE_FORMAT DD-MON-RR
NLS_DATE_LANGUAGE AMERICAN
NLS_SORT BINARY
NLS_TIME_FORMAT HH.MI.SSXFF AM
PARAMETER VALUE
NLS_TIMESTAMP_FORMAT DD-MON-RR HH.MI.SSXFF AM
NLS_TIME_TZ_FORMAT HH.MI.SSXFF AM TZR
NLS_TIMESTAMP_TZ_FORMAT DD-MON-RR HH.MI.SSXFF AM TZR
NLS_DUAL_CURRENCY $
NLS_COMP BINARY
NLS_LENGTH_SEMANTICS BYTE
NLS_NCHAR_CONV_EXCP FALSE
NLS_NCHAR_CHARACTERSET AL16UTF16
NLS_RDBMS_VERSION 11.1.0.7.0
20 rows selected.