ORA-01031: insufficient privileges

Your user is missing a system or object privilege needed for the statement — for example CREATE TABLE, ALTER SYSTEM or EXECUTE on a package. Inside definer’s-rights PL/SQL, privileges granted through roles do not count.

What it means

Oracle checks privileges for every statement. ORA-01031 means the statement was understood and the object was found, but your user is not allowed to perform the action. It is common when code that works in a worksheet fails inside a stored procedure, because roles are disabled in definer’s-rights units.

Common causes

Missing system privilege such as CREATE TABLE, CREATE VIEW or ALTER SYSTEM.
Missing object privilege such as UPDATE, DELETE or EXECUTE on another schema’s object.
The privilege comes through a role, but the statement runs inside a definer’s-rights procedure.
Trying to connect AS SYSDBA without being in the right OS group or password file.

How to fix it

List what you have: SESSION_PRIVS (system privileges) and SESSION_ROLES.
Ask the object owner or a DBA for exactly the missing privilege.
For stored procedures, grant the privilege directly to the procedure owner, or use invoker’s rights (AUTHID CURRENT_USER) where appropriate.
Avoid granting broad ANY privileges just to fix one error.

Example

What can I do right now?

SELECT privilege FROM session_privs ORDER BY privilege;
SELECT role      FROM session_roles ORDER BY role;

Direct grants for a procedure owner:

GRANT CREATE TABLE TO app_owner;
GRANT UPDATE ON hr.employees TO app_owner;

In SQLlightspeed

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Oracle documentation for ORA-01031. Oracle is a registered trademark of Oracle Corporation. SQLlightspeed is not affiliated with Oracle.