Oracle Error Tips by Burleson Consulting

Question:  I am getting the ORA-00942 error when trying to insert into a table, where the insert is inside a PL/SQL stored procedure:

How do I fix the ORA-00942 error?

Answer:  There are several common operations that cause a ORA-00942 error:

Table owner name not specified when logged-in as a non-creator of the table.

ORA-00942 on table import (imp or impdp).

ORA-00942 on materialized view refresh.

First, let's use the oerr command to see details on the ORA-00942 error:

ORA-00942 table or view does not exist Cause: The table or view entered does not exist, a synonym that is not allowed here was used, or a view was referenced where a table is required.

Existing user tables and views can be listed by querying the data dictionary. Certain privileges may be required to access the table. If an application returned this message, the table the application tried to access does not exist in the database, or the application does not have access to it.

Action: Check each of the following:

   - the spelling of the table or view name.    - that a view is not specified where a table is required.    - that an existing table or view name exists.    - Contact the database administrator if the table needs to be created or       if user or application privileges are required to access the table.

Also, if attempting to access a table or view in another schema, make certain the correct schema is referenced and that access to the object is granted.

This ORA-00942 error on insert is common when the user you are signed-on as does not have permission to see the table!

Either make the table public and grant DML privileges:

connect myuser/mypass create public synonym testtable for myuser.testtable grant insert, select, update, delete on mytable to public;

Alternately, you could change your insert to specify the table owner name:

insert into myuser.TestTable

Oracle offers great information on ORA-00942 when it is thrown after imports, where it is explained that the system was looking to find the parent table to go with the other (child) table.  To resolve ORA-00942, Oracle gives this solution:

Disable foreign keys constraints

1.  Use import Show = Y to see what import intends to do, Show = Y will not really import anything.

From this you will be able to see if your table has a child constraint on it.

Include a log= to create an import log so you have a record of what is happening.

2.  Import the table with Show = N and Rows = N to build the new table.  This will import the table structure only.

3.  Disable all constraints on new tables.

4.  Import the table again with Ignore = Y to avoid "Table already exists" errors [such as ORA-00942].

Enable the constraints again on a new table if you wish. 

If you receive ORA-00942 while attempting refresh, a DBA encounter error ORA-00942 after they attempted to refresh a materialized view using dbms_view.refresh: 

begin dbms_mview.refresh('STATUS_REP'); end;

* ERROR at line 1: ORA-00942: table or view does not exist ORA-06512: at "SYS.DBMS_SNAPSHOT", line 617 ORA-06512: at "SYS.DBMS_SNAPSHOT", line 674 ORA-06512: at "SYS.DBMS_SNAPSHOT", line 654 ORA-06512: at line 1

In this case, you do not know which of the tables within the materialized view is throwing the ORA-00942 error.  This user was advised to enable SQL Trace (TKPROF) st the session level to determine the exact table that is seeing the ORA-00942 error.