ORA-38104: Columns referenced in the ON Clause cannot be updated

In my case, this error pertains to Oracle Merge query. After 30 minutes of time wastage and a lot of hunting on different forums, I come to know that where and why was my merge query throwing exception.

I was giving multiple criteria in ON clause of merge query, and was also trying to update a column which I have mentioned in ON clause. Once I remove that column from update clause of merge query, it executed successfully.

I hope that this will also works for you.

In case if this post help you, then please comment on it.

Thanks.