Oracle: No more data to read from socket

We are using Oracle Database 10g Enterprise Edition Release 10.2.0.4.0 and we have an error on a query that gives us the error

Error: No more data to read from socket
SQLState:  null
ErrorCode: 17410

The query is similar to the following

select * from (
    select ... <many, MANY fields>
    from table   
    inner join
    left outer join
    left outer join
    inner join
    where string1='value1' and string2='value2'

) where rownum > 500 and rownum < 510

If I try to remove the final where statement the query runs fine.
Also if I try to "reduce" the rownum filter to a lower level of records the query runs fine:

where rownum<10

Searching on internet I have found that it could be caused by the parameter "cursor_sharing" to "similar" that seems buggy on some version of oracle. I tried to set it to "exact" but unfortunately I have the same error.

I was wondering if the retrieved data of a select statement may have a limit in bytes in oracle10g but I haven't found anything. I have found a limit on oracle8i but nothing to oracle10g.

We have the same problem executing the query on different client (dbvisualizer, squirrel) and on oracle console.