Proc SQL reading Oracle tables in Version 9.1.3 - not consistent results

[LeeDavis]

I am reading Oracle tables via Proc SQL in SAS version 9.1.3.  I have successfully used SAS to read the Oracle tables for over 10 years.  The past couple of months I will run the same program, back-to-back, and get a different number of observations as a result.  I do not know if this is an Oracle database problem, or if perhaps my SAS version is unreliable or too old? 

I sometimes get values for a field that do not exist.  For example:  values for user_status should be 'Active - Promotion', 'Active - New Hire', and I will get values like 'motionActive - Pro' which is not a valid value for user_status. 

Has anyone encountered problems such as these? 

Thanks in advance!

[Reeza]

It's difficult to make values up.

Have you confirmed these values do not exist in the Oracle Tables? Has your Oracle DB or the ODBC engine changed? 

Are you using a specific driver or ODBC?

SAS 9.1.3 is ancient...and that is the technical term, so if you have any ability to update I would highly highly recommend it.

https://blogs.sas.com/content/iml/2013/08/02/how-old-is-your-version-of-sas-release-dates-for-sas-so...

[ballardw]

I wonder if you are seeing some artifact of timing. Perhaps the documentation says you only have those two values as the permanent stored value but if a new record is being created, or perhaps an existing record is being editted somewhere, perhaps that is a temporary holding value until it is committed to the data base and you are reading it before the committal completes.

A pure WAG on my part.