ORA-29902: Error in Executing ODCIIndexStart() Routine

Question: We have been getting ORA-29902 errors from certain queries against some Oracle 9.2.0.6 databases with Oracle Text. A good example of our queries is shown as follows: 

SELECT r.id, r.parentid, r.name
FROM assetrefs r
INNER JOIN FullTextStrings s ON s.assetid = r.id AND CONTAINS( s.val, 'anyword', 1 ) > 0
WHERE r.parentid = '{583503FF-67E7-431E-93F8-382CCA65F9C5}';

The complete error message is shown as follows: 

11/16/07 01:19:35 ORA-29902: error in executing ODCIIndexStart() routine
ORA-20000: Oracle Text error:
DRG-50901: text query parser syntax error on line 1, column 1
State:S1000,Native:29902,Origin:[Oracle][ODBC][Ora]

Now, the tricky things about the error are:

1. The error happens ONLY when the parameter for Oracle Text, 'anyword', is passed in  by our application via dynamic parameter binding. If we don't use dynamic binding for that parameter, the query runs well and returns correct results.

2. The error happens no matter what 'anyword' is.

3. Dynamic parameter binding for the parameter in the non-Oracle-Text constraint, r.parentid = '{583503FF-67E7-431E-93F8-382CCA65F9C5}', does NOT incur any error.

4. The error always happens to some Oracle database instances but never happened to other instances.

Based on the observation described above, we suspected that our error problem is related to the configuration and/or environment of Oracle Text. Does anyone out there have any idea about what's wrong with the configuration/environment? Any idea how to fix the problem?

Answer:  To diagnose any error, you start by using the oerr utility to display the ORA-29902 error:

ORA-29902:  error in executing ODCIIndexStart() routine

Cause:  The execution of ODCIIndexStart routine caused an error.

Action:  Examine the error messages produced by the indextype code and take appropriate action.
 

In this case, it turns out the DRG-50901 is referencing a syntax error.  The locations in error messages are not always reliable, so reviewing the code as listed, I noted that 'anyword' is in single quotes when it should be in curly braces as follows:

INNER JOIN FullTextStrings s ON s.assetid = r.id AND CONTAINS( s.val, '{anyword}', 1 ) > 0

This fix should eliminate the ORA-29902 and the DRG-50901 errors.