ORA-06508: PL/SQL: could not find program unit being called tips

Cause: An attempt was made to call a stored program that could not be found. The program may have been dropped or incompatibly modified, or have compiled with errors.

 

Action: Check that all referenced programs, including their package bodies, exist and are compatible.

On Oracle FAQ's, a user is stumped by ORA-06508 in his SQL.  Though he knows the Oracle documentation, he is not sure how to find it.  Here is what we know based on a replier's attempt to diagnose the problem behind ORA-06508:

• "i've created a PL/SQL library named common_lib which has only one procedure hello like this
  ---------------------------
  PACKAGE BODY common_lib IS
  procedure hello is
  begin
  message('hello');
  end hello;
  END;
  ---------------------------
  i've attached this lib to a form and call this hello procedure in a push button when-button-pressed trigger. Compilation is ok, but when the form runs, it throws an exception: ORA-06508."
• forms and libraries are in separate directories
• "I use forms 6i, and these directories are included in the forms60_path environment variable."
• the name of the directory does not have a space
• "I've created the lib dir after the form dir.
  in the forms60_path:
  ------------------------
  FORMS60_PATH=D:\oracle80\FORMS60;D:\oracle80\TOOLS\OPEN60\PLSQLLIB;D:\testproject\lib;D:\testproject\form;
  ------------------------
• none of the directories are empty in the forms60_path
• > When you attached the library, did you take the default option of using the full directory name of the library or did you press 'No'?
  
  for the portable reason, i choose 'Yes'

After these questions were answered, a replier was able to diagnose the problem behind ORA-06508, and the user successfully got rid of the error:

> FORMS60_PATH=D:\oracle80\FORMS60;D:\oracle80\TOOLS\OPEN60\PLSQLLIB;D:\testproject\lib;D:\testproject\form;

I would suggest putting your directories at the beginning of the line. This is opposite to the order you would use for Java paths where your files HAVE to come AFTER the supplied files. And I don't think you need the trailing semi-colon.