ORA-27369 Error when running Scheduler jobs

Question

We have an Oracle 11g Standard Edition (11.1.0.7) instance running on virtualized Oracle Enterprise Linux, hosted on VMWare. Every external job submitted via the Scheduler ends with the above error, although the jobs all run to completion - all steps are completed.
All of the external jobs are executed by a specific shell script that dynamically queries a table in the database with all the steps/programs that need to be executed. This varies from job to job. The script receives several parameters that are used to extract the task information.
If we run the same script from the OS, with the same parameters, the script runs to completion and no error is raised. We have tested this exhaustively and have never had the script raise any OS level errors.
Even a simple external script (e.g. a one-line shell script with something like "sleep 10") returns the same error code. The alert log always shows the same error text for every job:
ORA-12012: error on auto execute of job 73527
ORA-27369: job of type EXECUTABLE failed with exit code: No child processes
In our company we have at least 3 other similar 11g SE/Enterprise Linux/VMWare installations, and ours is the only one with this issue. I have had an open SR with Oracle support since January 2010 on this problem, but that has been an endless cycle of questons, replys, information requests, and requests for more info. No progress whatsoever. Since the jobs run to completion, it is not preventing us from workign with the scheduler, but the end users have become a little complacent with the "Error" status attached to their jobs so if one really fails, it may get missed.
The only difference we know of between our installation and the other similar installs is that we use Arcserve Agent for Linux to do (cold) backups to a remote Arcserve host. The other 3 sites use other backup software.
What we have observed is the following:
1. If we simply bounce the database, the problem persists.
2. If we shut down and restart the virtual server OS, the problem persists.
3. If we shut down the VMWare host server (and all the other VM's on that host!) and restart it, the problem persists.
4. If we shut down the virtual server OS and make a significant change to the server (e.g. add a new virtual disk) and restart it, the scheduler runs fine and no error is reported. But only until the next backup cycle. Then the problem returns and is persistent until the next time we make a similar significant change in the host virtual machine.
With no clear suggestions from Oracle Support, we are at our wit's end as to what we might be able to do to resolve this issue. There does appear to be a cause and effect link to Arcserve, but implementing a different backup solution is not an option at this time.
I wanted to post this issue in the hope that someone may have a tip or suggestion that could lead to a solution.....

Answer 1

I think it should be a better solution to create a package,
and put your own TYPES and procedure into it.
CREATE OR REPLACE PACKAGE PKG_XXX IS
TYPE TYP_TAB_CHAR IS TABLE OF .... ;
PROCEDURE P_XX ( Var1 IN VARCHAR2, var2 IN OUT TYP_TAB_CHAR );
END ;
Then in your Form :
Declare
var PKG_XXX.TYP_TAB_CHAR ;
Begin
PKG_XXX.P_XX( 'user_name', var ) ;
End ;