Oracle / PLSQL: ORA-00020 Error Message

Learn the cause and how to resolve the ORA-00020 error message in Oracle.

Description

When you encounter an ORA-00020 error, the following error message will appear:

• ORA-00020: maximum number of processes num exceeded

Cause

You tried to execute a statement that requested a resource. Since the maximum number of processes have been reached, Oracle will not process any new requests.

Resolution

The option(s) to resolve this Oracle error are:

Option #1

You can wait a few minutes and try to re-execute the statement(s).

Option #2

You can shut down Oracle, increase the PROCESSES parameter in the initialization parameter file, and restart Oracle.