ORA-04062 occurs when executing a form that contains a call to a DB package

Question

We have an application that is written in Forms 6i. We just recently deployed
this to a test server. When trying to run forms that have calls to database
packages that have a PL/SQL table as a parameter, we are getting an ORA-04062
error. This does not occur on our development server. I did some research on
Metalink and found lots of information about this error. One of which was NOTE
73506.1. I thought this was our problem. I added the initialization parameter
REMOTE_DEPENDENCIES_MODE = SIGNATURE to the init.ora file for the test server.
This did not seem to help. I am at a loss as to what to do next. We actually
have 3 servers that we are working with right now. Here is a summary of some
tests that we did.
Compiled Form against Database on Server 1. The form worked on Server 1 and
Server 2. It did not work on Server 3.
Compiled Form against Database on Server 2. The form worked on Server 1 and
Server 2. It did not work on Server 3.
Compiled Form against Database on Server 3. The form worked on Server 3. It did
not work on Server 1 or Server 2.
We had changed the init.ora file on Servers 2 & 3 to have the
remote_dependencies_mode = signature. So I expected the form to work on those
two servers (2 & 3) and not on server 1.
We never had this problem when we were Forms 4.5, but we didn't have the PL/SQL
table functionality then either.
It appears to work on any schema on the Server that the form was compiled
against regardless of the timestamp for the package on that schema.
Has anyone else had this problem? Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Answer 1

After many long and frustrating days, I have finally figured out what the problem is.
In the package that was failing, it was creating a pl/sql table that had 3 columns. Two of those columns were using a %TYPE as the declaration. The problem one was compounds.name%TYPE.
It turned out that the server that was having the problem had this column's definition being VARCHAR2(50) on all of its schemas. The form was being compiled against a database that had this column set to VARCHAR2(30). The 30 length is the correct definition. We aren't sure how all the schema's on that server got messed up, but that is the problem. Once we dropped the table and recreated it with the correct definitons, the form that called the package worked as it should.
I am a little confused as to why the %TYPE didn't work at runtime. I thougth that the purpose of using a %TYPE was so that if the column defintion changed after the code was compiled, that it would use whatever the definiton is at runtime. Is this not true?
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