Hi @dcal
Are you still looking for a solution? Can you reproduce this on the 3.0-RC? If so, how can we guide you (as not many users have access to Oracle DBs) to test this problem for us in the RC period, before the 3.0.0 release?
It might help to ask in the Gitter/Matrix channel https://matrix.to/#/#geoserver:osgeo.org for more immediate back and forth.
Also, linking this to GeoServer 3.0-RC Planning - code freeze thursday
Peter