Valid Packages/Procedures/Triggers that are NOT

[VICTORIA_PIERCE]

We had a weird situation yesterday on a database that had been upgraded from 8.1.6 to 9.2.0.1 over the weekend.  Suddenly at 10:30 am, after being in production for a day and a half, 93 previously VALID packages, package bodies, triggers and procedures went INVALID.  We have not been able to figure out what made them go invalid (they were all in the same application schema).  Anyway, we recompiled all objects and all were then marked as VALID.  However, some of the code still failed to work;  (as an aside, we narrowed it down to those packages that contained ref cursors).  Since the packages were apparently VALID, we did not recompile them again until after we bounced the database and generally chased our tails for a couple of hours.  In a last-ditch effort, we recompiled all the objects again and the code started working.

Do any of you know of a bug in 9i that would cause an INVALID package to be marked VALID?  Or,  when is a VALID package really INVALID?

Thanks for your input.

Vicki Pierce
Database Administration
x2401