SYS_AUTO_SQL_TUNING_TASK exiting with error "1760"

A DBA reported that he is seeing intermittent errors in the alert log related to SYS_AUTO_SQL_TUNING_TASK failing with error 1760.

Begin automatic SQL Tuning Advisor run for special tuning task  "SYS_AUTO_SQL_TUNING_TASK"
SYS_AUTO_SQL_TUNING_TASK exiting with error "1760" for execution "EXEC_11029".  See DBA_ADVISOR_EXECUTIONS for more details.
End automatic SQL Tuning Advisor run for special tuning task  "SYS_AUTO_SQL_TUNING_TASK"
Errors in file **************************************************_j003_****.trc:
ORA-12012: error on auto execute of job 53057
ORA-01760: illegal argument for function
ORA-06512: at "SYS.PRVT_ADVISOR", line 2693
ORA-06512: at "SYS.DBMS_ADVISOR", line 241
ORA-06512: at "SYS.DBMS_SQLTUNE", line 772
ORA-06512: at line 4

My first impression was that may be the objects "SYS.PRVT_ADVISOR", "SYS.DBMS_SQLTUNE" are invalid. But I was wrong, the DBA said, there were no invalid objects under SYS schema.


This seems to be related with Bug 9021724 which is is fixed in 11.2.0.2 but a patch needs to applied for earlier versions if you are seeing these intermittent errors. 




NOTE: This is only related to intermittent ORA-1760 on SQL Tuning Advisor task.