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Oracle Troubleshooting

ORA-00942: table or view does not exist

Symptom:

When performing some SQL on a table the following error is returned:

ORA-00942: table or view does not exist

Possible Causes and Remedies

This typically has one of the following causes:

  • The table exists but is in a different schema from the current. Resolve this by explicitly specifying the schema name.
  • The table does not exist or is miss-spelt. Check the name of the table.
  • The user does not have the necessary permissions to read (i.e. select) from the table. Consult your Oracle DBA and identify whether the user should have the necessary permissions.
  • When selecting from a system view (such as V$SESSION) the privilege to select from the view must be granted to the user directly and not via a role. This is the case if you can select from the view without problem but then get this error when trying to create a view on it.

This page represents one page of many pages of notes I made whilst working with Oracle 7 through to 10i. I now no longer work with Oracle databases, but hope that these notes will continue to be of benefit to others.

About the author: is a dedicated software developer and webmaster. For his day job he develops websites and desktop applications as well as providing IT services. He moonlights as a technical author and consultant.