Incomplete/Broken HTML output

A few days ago an ApexLib user from Norway contacted me and told me that the framework doesn't work and he is getting JavaScript errors.

I looked at the provided HTML output and I was scratching my head, because the output looked really strange and I couldn't really come of with a good reason why the JavaScript code was broken. Another wired thing was that it worked sometimes for the page and sometimes not, the error was depending on the data which was displayed!

apexlib.field.addField("P4_REGION_ID", [...]
apexlib.field.ddField("P4_COUNTRY_ID", [...]

In the above example, the "a" of addField was missing, but in the previous statement it was there. So no programming error.

After some investigation I found the thread strange things happening: broken html in output on the OTN Forum.

Arie gave me a good tip and as soon as the patch was installed, everything worked as expected.

I write this blog posting, because yesterday I read that another user on the OTN forum had the same problem and I suspect that most users ignore the post installation steps of the APEX installation. So that's a good chance to verify if you have installed the "PL/SQL Web Tookit Patch". That can save you a lot of time looking for an error which isn't really one.

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Got an "ORA-06502: numeric or value error" during installation of APEX 2.2.x?

I ran into this Oracle APEX installation problem a few months ago and just got a call from one of our customers hitting the same problem. So I thought it might be a good idea to share the reason and the workaround for that problem.

Does your installation log files contain the following errors?

Error creating button name="REFRESH" id="181590632003554484" ORA-06502: PL/SQL:
numeric or value error: character string buffer too small
ORA-06512: at        
"FLOWS_020200.WWV_BIU_STEP_BUTTONS", line 24
ORA-04088: error during execution

or

Error page=190 item="F4000_P190_QUICKPICK" id="5224728991502726"               
declare
*
ERROR at line 1:
ORA-06502: PL/SQL: numeric or value error
ORA-06512: at "SYS.OWA_UTIL", line 323
ORA-06512: at "SYS.HTP", line 860
ORA-06512: at "SYS.HTP", line 975
ORA-06512: at "SYS.HTP", line 993
ORA-06512: at "FLOWS_020200.WWV_FLOW_API", line 4005
ORA-06502: PL/SQL: numeric or value error: character string buffer too small
ORA-06512: at "FLOWS_020200.WWV_BIU_STEP_ITEMS", line 63
ORA-04088: error during execution of trigger 'FLOWS_020200.WWV_BIU_STEP_ITEMS'
ORA-06512: at line 4 

I'm pretty sure that your database parameter NLS_LENGTH_SEMANTICS is set to CHAR.

Workaround

In your SQL*Plus session execute

ALTER SESSION SET NLS_LENGTH_SEMANTICS=BYTE;

before you run the APEX installation scripts.

See also the related OTN thread Version 2.2 installation fails.

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