ORA-01502 Index or Partition of such index is in unusable state

NOTE > The problem usually happens when using the Direct Path for the SQL*Loader, Direct Load or DDL operations. This requires enough temporary space to build all indexes of the table. If there is no enough space in TEMP tablespace, all rows will still be loaded and imported, but the indexes are left with STATUS = ‘INVALID’.


Check invalid indexes using the below query, connecting to SYS user.

SQL > select owner, index_name from dba_indexes where status='UNUSABLE';

To check status of a specific index use the below query:

SQL> select owner,index_name,table_name,status from dba_indexes where index_name='&index_name';

We can use the below query for rebuilding all the failed indexes in the database.

Conn to sys and execute the below.

SQL> SELECT 'ALTER INDEX '||OWNER||'.'||INDEX_NAME||' REBUILD;' FROM DBA_INDEXES WHERE STATUS = 'UNUSABLE';

Can unusable indexes using below parameter ' SKIP_UNUSABLE_INDEXES'

Session level:

alter session set skip_unusable_indexes=true;

alter session set skip_unusable_indexes=false;

Please see MOS note : Doc ID 1618766.1 for ref.

We can rebuild index normally & also we can do it online. Please see below notes.

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Alter index rebuild online:
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During a online index rebuild, Oracle will make a snapshot log on the target table to hold DML activity, read the table in a full-table scan (read consistent), build the new index and then apply the changes from the snapshot log after the index has been rebuilt.  Because the "alter index rebuild online" performs a full-table scan, it can be perform using parallel query (a parallel hint), and the online rebuild can also be performed in NOLOGGING mode.

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Alter index rebuild:
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During a "regular" index rebuild, locking occurs as the existing index is read.  Hence, this command is designed for scheduled downtime periods where there is no DML activity.

Thank You!