How to Resolve Oracle “Not a Valid Month” Error

Published by Jacob Martin on July 31, 2015

You might have acme across “ORA-01843: not a valid month” error but do you know you can easily fix them. This error is very common for Oracle SQL developers and if you have find this error then this article is right for you it will help you to solve it.

What Is “Not a Valid Month” Error?

This error generally appears in Oracle when you are using TO_DATE function in SQL statement but get an error with the output:

ORA-01843: not a valid month

The TO_DATE function might be converting your input into DATE value but die to some error it is preventing you from doing that.

TO_DATE Syntax

The syntax of TO_DATE function is:

TO_DATE( string1, [ format_mask ], [nls_language ] )

First parameter is the input string, and the mandatory field. Second parameter is format mask of input value and the last is language of date value.

Causes behind the Error:

The most common cause is how you have specified the month value in your TO_DATE parameter.

It can be a typo like entering the value of “13″ for month as there are only 12 months or entering value of “JNA” instead of “JAN” which stands for January.

SELECT TO_DATE('01-JNA-2015') FROM dual;

Fix: In order to fix this update your SQL statement removes your mistake and use correct month value.

SELECT TO_DATE ('01-JAN-2015') FROM dual;

If the value is correct but stilly you are getting the error then it can be due to the format you have entered.

TO_DATE let you enter the format along with input value. This format reflects the input value not output value.

If you have entered valid value for month like “JAN” or 12, then it might be that the format does not match the input value.

For example:

SELECT TO_DATE('14-APR-2015', 'MM-DD-YYYY') FROM dual;

This will display you an error as the value expected for month is in wrong order, and 14 too high values for month.

Fix: Either update input value to match the give format or update the format.

You can even go with a simple tool in order to fix the issue. There are many tools available in the market that can fix the issue. Here you have a Oracle File Repair Tool that will help you to fix any sort of corruption issue in your oracle database. This tool searches all sort of Oracle databases error which are present in the system and it also shows preview of the database recovered. It restores data from database as well as backup files. This repair tool is very easy to use and so it does not require any technical skills.

Steps to recover damaged or corrupted Oracle File

Step 1: Search Initial screen of Stellar Phoenix Oracle Recovery with a pop-up window showing options to select or search corrupt Oracle databases in your computer.

Step 2: Click Scan File to initiate the scan process after selecting the oracle database. The recoverable database objects get listed in left-side pane.

Step 3: Click an object to see its preview.

Step 4: : Click Start Repair in the icon bar to start the repair process. A pop-up window is displayed which show the steps needed to perform further. Click next and continue.

Step 5: Give the user name, password and path of the blank database where you want to save the repaired database objects.

Step 6: Repairing and restoring various database objects after establishing a connection with blank oracle database.

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