Oracle Error ORA-12899 Identity Manager Column Size Limitation

Products

• CA Identity Manager
• CA Identity Governance
• CA Identity Portal

Issue/Introduction

Users may encounter performance failures or task errors in Identity Manager when database field limits are exceeded. This typically occurs during audit logging or status updates where the generated description exceeds the default character limit of the Oracle database column.

Symptoms: The following errors are observed in the server logs:

• java.sql.SQLException: ORA-12899: value too large for column "[DB_NAME]"."[TABLE_NAME]"."DESCRIPTION" (actual: 3003, maximum: 2000)
• ORA-12899: value too large for column "[DB_NAME]"."IMSAUDITOBJECTATTRIBUTES12"."ATTRIBUTE_NEWVALUE" (actual: 4001, maximum: 4000)
• Failed events such as EnableUserEvent or saveRuntimeStatusDetail.

 

Environment

• Product: Identity Management and Governance (Identity Manager, Identity Portal, Identity Suite)
• Versions: 14.x, 14.3 CP2 HF2, 14.4 CP2 HF1, 14.5.1 [1] [2]
• Database: Oracle
• App Server: JBoss/Wildfly, Virtual Appliance (vApp)

Cause

• Column Limitations: By default, the DESCRIPTION field in the RUNTIMESTATUSDETAIL12 table is set to nvarchar(2000). Specific use cases—such as complex Policy Xpress (PX) rules or detailed task persistence logs—can generate strings exceeding 2000 characters [1].
• Audit Logging Overflows: In some environments, specifically version 14.5.1, large attribute values (e.g., %ENABLED_STATE% or new values in JDBC user stores) can exceed the 4000-character limit of the ATTRIBUTE_NEWVALUE column in the IMSAUDITOBJECTATTRIBUTES12 table

 

Resolution

The column size can be safely increased to accommodate larger descriptions. Note that the archive database must match the production database settings to avoid failures during data archiving.

1. Identify Target Fields:

• • runtimeStatusDetail12.Description
  • archive_runtimeStatusDetail12.Description
  • IMSAUDITOBJECTATTRIBUTES12.ATTRIBUTE_NEWVALUE (for audit-related ORA-12899 errors)

The Description field can be safely increased to a max of nvarchar(4000) to accommodate environments with large descriptions. In addition to increasing the description field, the archive DB description field must also be increased otherwise errors will occur while attempting to archive data. The value that you choose for the description field must be the same for the archive description field. For example, if you increase the description to nvarchar(3000), then the archive description must also be nvarchar(3000). 

2. Increase Column Size:

• • Increase nvarchar(2000) fields to a maximum of nvarchar(4000)
  • Ensure the value chosen is identical for both the primary and archive database fields [3].

3. DBA Engagement: Coordinate with your Database Administrator to execute the ALTER TABLE commands.

The full names of the fields are as follows: 

[DB NAME].runtimeStatusDetail12.Description 

[DB NAME].archive_runtimeStatusDetail12.Description