We have a problem where our application is hitting 'maximum open cursors exceeded'. I ran the following queries on the database to check what session has the most open cursors:
select distinct(sid),count(*) from v$open_cursor
group by sid
order by count(*)
/
and
select s.sid, max(a.value)
from v$sesstat a, v$statname b, v$session s
where a.statistic# = b.statistic#
and s.sid (+)= a.sid
and b.name = 'opened cursors current'
group by s.sid
order by max(a.value)
/

and I found a session in the V$SESSTAT that had a max(value) of 18446744073709551612 (yes, excessive I know!).
This session/SID didn't appear in the V$OPEN_CURSOR view. Why not? What is the difference between 'opened cursors current' in v$sesstat and V$open_cursor? Thanks. Rgds. Sheryl